Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev missed the informal CIS summit in St. Petersburg due to a busy work schedule. Aliyev's administration also noted that his absence from the meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council on December 21 was due to Azerbaijan not being a member of the organization.
Answering a question about the impact of the law on foreign agents initiated by the Georgian authorities, EU Ambassador to Georgia Pavel Gerchinsky said that it is incompatible with European norms and values.
“Georgia is one of 10 EU candidate countries, some of them are moving forward quickly, negotiations have already begun with some of them. Georgia has every opportunity to be just as successful. 85–90% of Georgian citizens support this direction. All political parties represented in the country’s parliament support this direction, and it is a big paradox that when the door is wide open, confusing signals are coming from Tbilisi,” noted Gerchinsky.
Earlier, rallies were held in Tbilisi against the adoption of a law on foreign agents, initiated by the ruling Georgian Dream party. The country's president, Salome Zurabishvili, also spoke out against him. She called on citizens to choose “between independence and slavery, Europe and the Russian Federation.”