The Administration of the President is responding to an open letter from Mikheil Saakashvili to Salome Zourabichvili.

“We consider it expedient to once again provide information to the society as to why the classified legal acts issued by the President in 2013 have not been declassified.

The registration, storage and archiving of classified documents issued by the President of Georgia were carried out by the Office of the Security Council of Georgia before its abolition [2018]. After that, the Government was appointed as the legal successor of the State Security Council.

Accordingly, all documents stored in the National Security Council were immediately forwarded to the Administration of the Government and by January 1, 2019, the Administration of the Government was required to classify, archive and take the measures specified in other relevant acts.

It should be noted that the Administration of the President has applied to the Administration of the Government several times in 2019-2021 to provide the Presidential Administration with classified documents defined by this classification code, but despite repeated appeals, the Presidential Administration has not received the documents.

Consequently, we are deprived of the opportunity to discuss the mentioned documents and their classification. If the ex-president has any complaints about these documents, he can personally apply to the Government and its Administration to have updated information on the documents.

He insinuates about treating guests with champagne, as well as pardon decisions. Such insinuations are completely inappropriate and unacceptable, as well as anachronistic and futile, because they belong to the past, far removed from the process of national consent, which was launched by the President a few months ago.

The President has explained many times that this process serves to build a state where no one will have a sense of fear and no one will be able to achieve their own political result through blackmail and discredit.

Finally, it sounds very embarrassing for a former president who has renounced his citizenship and country, who has received citizenship of another country, to indicate and make a reference about French citizenship, which was finally given up by the President of Georgia, Salome Zourabichvili”, - said Natia Sulava, the Head of the Presidential Administration.