This is CBS. I on the World. I'm John Batchel. Georgia in the South Caucasus.

Georgia, part of the Soviet Empire once upon a time, now in an independent state that has pieces of Georgia in contention.

Abkhazia and South Ossetia, to name two, dating back to the early days of

the Obama administration, when then vice president, before that senator, and now President

Biden was involved in Georgia's fate. Tbilisi is the capital. I've visited Tbilisi.

It's an old European-like city,

needing a lot of sprucing up,

and that's been underway for several years,

except we've now run into turmoil at the election level,

thanks to Akaterina Zolotava in Moscow for geopolitical futures. I'm informed at least I can begin to say what the two sides

represent in the protests in Tbilisi and the Georgia Dream dominant party in the assembly.

A Katerina, a very good day to you. We introduce two of the players who are critical to understand the

protests. There is the president of the players who are critical to understand the protest. There is the president of

the president of Georgia, Salome Zorabishvili, and there is the prime minister, Iraqi,

Kobachshitzi. Kobachidze. They represent two sides of the presentation of Georgia. Nominally, this is about media,

registering NGOs, reviewing data, misinformation. However, I believe there's the hint of its

East versus West. How do they think of themselves? First, the presidents are obishevili and then the Prime Minister Kobak Hitsi. Good evening to you. Good evening.

Well, I think it's worth to mention that the friendship between Georgia and the European

Union have been maintaining for quite a long time. And Georgia actually started the process of thinking to join the European Union since 2014, if even not earlier.

And it was participating in several projects as well.

And actually almost one year ago, the European Union granted Georgia with the status of official candidate.

In fact, during all of this period, well, most part of this period, the ruling party was the same Georgian, Georgian dream party.

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