Georgia has prevented Maidan-style coup – PM

The country’s authorities have thwarted a regime-change attempt coordinated from abroad, Irakli Kobakhidze has said.

Georgia has prevented an attempted overthrow of the government orchestrated by foreign powers, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has said. He compared the scenario allegedly prepared for the nation with the situation in Ukraine in 2014.

Speaking on Monday, Kobakhidze referred to the US-backed Maidan coup in Kiev a decade ago, which ousted Ukraine’s democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovich, and precipitated the current conflict between Moscow and Kiev.

“It took the [Georgian] Ministry of Internal Affairs exactly five days to neutralize the resource of violence of the radical opposition,” Kobakhidze said at a cabinet meeting, thanking the head of the ministry, Vakhtang Gomelauri, and police officers.

He added that the ministry had acted in accordance with standards “higher than the American and European ones.”

“This is how the attempt of Maidan in our country was stopped in exactly five days,” Kobakhidze concluded.

The Georgian capital, Tbilisi, has been rocked by anti-government and pro-EU rallies since late November, when Kobakhidze announced that the country would halt negotiations on potential accession to the bloc until 2028, citing “blackmail and manipulation” from EU officials. Brussels has since imposed personal sanctions against members of the Georgian government.

Protestors have repeatedly clashed with law enforcement, shot fireworks, and thrown Molotov cocktails at riot police, who have deployed tear gas and water cannons in an effort to disperse the demonstrators.