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#11 - JRL 8005
"Russia is not an overlord and we are not colonies" - Georgian president-elect
RIA Novosti

Paris, 7 January: Georgia's main foreign policy priority is integration into Europe. Mikheil Saakashvili, who, according to preliminary results, is leading in the Georgian presidential election held on Sunday [4 January], said this while speaking on Radio France Internationale.

"All Georgians regards themselves as Europeans" and associate their future with Europe, Saakashvili said.

"We intend to integrate into Europe and this is our main priority," said Saakashvili, and added that in the near future he planned to go to the World Economic Forum in Davos and then to Strasbourg to attend the January session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

According to Saakashvili, the new Georgian authorities are taking "neither a pro-American nor a pro-Russian stance". Russia "has played a very negative role in recent years", and therefore it is necessary to change the rules of Georgian-Russian relations, the new Georgian leader said. He thinks that "the Russians do not understand well enough that Russia is not an overlord and we are not colonies"