Ambassador Says GD Sent Trump Administration Threatening, Insulting, and Unserious Letter

In an exclusive interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Dunnigan stated that she wanted to meet with Bidzina Ivanishvili, the honorary chairman of Georgian Dream, to convey Secretary of State Marco Rubio's response to the letter, but Ivanishvili said "no."

"Early in the Trump administration, I went back to Washington to meet with senior officials in the new administration, to talk about our Georgia policy, and to have guidance on what they would like their first message to the Georgian government to be.

I came back and met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs [Maka Bochorishvili], and I laid out very clearly two or three steps that Georgian Dream could take to help set our relationship back on track. Three days later – and again, I wouldn’t usually comment on this, but the Prime Minister himself mentioned it – Georgian Dream leadership sent me a letter to the Trump administration. A private letter.

This is not a public letter, which, frankly, was threatening, insulting, unserious, and was received extremely poorly in Washington. Extremely poorly. So, it took us a while to come up with a response. That's the truth. And I think it took a while because people were very surprised that such a correspondence from the leadership of one country to my country.

Meanwhile, while we were coming up with the response, the Prime Minister published an open letter. Then, I went to the Prime Minister and told him that I had a response from Secretary Rubio, who asked me to deliver it to Bidzina Ivanishvili. Bidzina Ivanishvili said 'no.' I’m happy to meet with the Prime Minister at any time. He did not ask to meet with me separately, but I was told to deliver this correspondence from the Trump administration directly to Bidzina Ivanishvili, and he said 'no.' I was not asked to deliver it to the Prime Minister," said the Ambassador, who is leaving Georgia in July based on a personal decision.

When asked if she had inquired in Washington why the response should be delivered to Bidzina Ivanishvili and not Irakli Kobakhidze, Robin Dunnigan stated:

"I think most people in the world recognize that Bidzina Ivanishvili runs the government. The crazy thing is that the asks of how to get the relationship back on track aren't that hard.

One of the first steps would be to stop the anti-American rhetoric. Stop saying things that aren’t true about the US. Georgian Dream says a lot of things about the US that are not true: that we tried to start a second front here – not true; that my predecessor tried to ignite a revolution here – not true; that our strategic partnership is only a partnership on paper – not true; that I am being recalled by my government – not true. I can go on and on."

On May 28, the US Embassy released a statement according to which, at the request of Secretary of State Rubio, Ambassador Dunnigan requested a meeting with Ivanishvili, but the latter refused the meeting. Ivanishvili's response statement said that the ambassador was offered a meeting with Irakli Kobakhidze, which she refused. "Therefore, the request for a meeting with me has only one explanation: that the meeting is only valuable against the background of personal blackmail," Bidzina Ivanishvili wrote.

Earlier, on May 13, the Prime Minister of Georgian Dream, Irakli Kobakhidze, addressed Donald Trump with an open letter, expressing his dissatisfaction that no communication at the highest level had taken place between the Georgian and US governments. Kobakhidze also wrote that the Trump administration had left unanswered a letter he sent several weeks earlier regarding Georgian-American relations, as well as public statements expressing readiness to renew relations from a clean slate.