Tbilisi, 20 October: US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried has said that the development of democracy in Georgia is an indispensable condition for this country's stabilization.

Democracy is "an indispensable condition for establishing peace and stability," he said at his meeting in Tbilisi with representatives of the parliamentary opposition on Monday [20 October].

"Meetings with opposition representatives are quite natural for a democratic country. Had I arrived in an authoritarian country, I would have met dissidents," Fried told journalists.

He said that, at the meeting, he reiterated US support for Georgia.

"I said once more that the United States supports Georgia's aspiration to join NATO and become integrated into Euro-Atlantic structures," the assistant secretary of state noted.

At the same time, he said that "the United Nations, EU, and the United States should now join efforts to establish peace in Georgia".

"I believe that the Rose Revolution [which brought incumbent Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to power in 2003] does not provide grounds for new revolutions in Georgia. A normal country should have one president, one prime minister, and many ex-presidents, who will not be kept in prison and will not disappear from the country," Fried stressed after his meeting with the Georgian parliamentary opposition.