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Georgia’s national security apparatus was in a state of disarray in 2006. Pres. Mikheil Saakashvili dismissed his close associate, hawkish Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili, on November 10, appointing him economy minister to succeed Irakli Chogovadze, but Okruashvili resigned his new post on November 17. Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili, was harshly criticized following the murder in late January, by ministry officials, of banker Sandro Girgvliani and a riot on March 27 in a Tbilisi jail in which seven prisoners died, but Saakashvili ignored opposition demands for Merabishvili’s dismissal.
Troops were deployed on July 25 to the Kodori Gorge, but they failed to apprehend former regional governor Emzar Kvitsiani, whom the authorities accused of sedition. Former security minister Irakli Batiashvili was arrested on suspicion of abetting Kvitsiani. On September 6, 29 associates of another former national security minister, Igor Giorgadze, were arrested; 13 of them were later charged with plotting a coup.
Opposition parties launched a boycott of parliamentary proceedings on March 31 but ended it in late October. The ruling National Movement–Democrats won a huge majority in local elections (originally due in December), held on short notice on October 5.
UN-sponsored talks in Tbilisi on May 15 raised hopes of progress in resolving the Abkhaz conflict, but on June 1 Abkhazia rejected a new Georgian peace proposal. The Georgian Parliament voted on July 18 to demand the withdrawal of Russian peacekeeping forces from Abkhazia and from South Ossetia, where during the summer several people died in explosions and interethnic clashes. South Ossetian Pres. Eduard Kokoity on November 2 rejected Saakashvili’s offer of face-to-face talks. Kokoity was overwhelmingly reelected on November 12. Ossetian voters expressed overwhelming support in a referendum the same day for seeking international recognition as an independent state.
President Saakashvili publicly blamed Russia for a January 22 explosion that disrupted Russian natural gas imports. In late March the Russian government imposed a ban on imports of Georgian wine and mineral water. Meetings between Saakashvili and Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg on June 13 and between the two countries’ foreign ministers in Moscow in early November failed to defuse tensions in bilateral relations. On October 3 Moscow imposed a transport blockade on Georgia and began deporting Georgian nationals in retaliation for the September 27 arrest of four Russian servicemen in Tbilisi on suspicion of espionage. On November 2 Russia’s Gazprom announced that in 2007 it would more than double the price it charged Georgia for natural gas.
During Saakashvili’s visit to Washington in early July, U.S. Pres. George W. Bush praised Georgia’s progress in democratization and its pro-Western orientation. On September 21, NATO formally offered Georgia “Intensified Dialogue,” the next step toward full membership.
