Georgian President visits Baku

A Georgian delegation headed by President Mikhail Saakashvili arrived in Baku on Thursday.

Saying that his visit to Azerbaijan after Russia and the United States proves that he attaches great importance to this country, Saakashvili noted that he would discuss a number of important issues with President Ilham Aliyev.

Saakashvili was born in the family of an educated man in Tbilisi on December 21, 1967. His father Nikolos Saakashvili is a doctor and mother - a historian. After leaving secondary school in Tbilisi with a golden medal in 1984, Mikhail Saakashvili went to the faculty of international law of the Kiev University. He worked as a head of the office for the Committee on Human Rights and International Relations in Georgia in 1993. Then he continued his education at the Strasbourg University on Human Rights and Columbian University getting a master’s degree. Saakashvili has graduated from the George Washington University with PhD degree. He also got education at the Florence Law Academy and Hague Academy of International Law, worked for the Norwegian Institute of Human Rights and then acted as an advocate at a legal company in New York. He is married to Dutch Sandra Roelofs.

Returning to Tbilisi in 1995, Saakashvili was elected an MP from the bloc of the ruling Union of Georgian Citizens, became a chairman of the committee on constitution and legal issues and then the leader of “The Union of Georgian Citizens” faction in 1998. He represented Georgia at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in 1999 and worked as the Georgian Minister for Justice in 2000. Resigning from this post in 2001, Saakashvili took the side of opposition and sharing major votes with the Labor Party during the municipal elections the same year, he was elected a chairman of Tbilisi Sagrebulos (council). Together with his supporters Saakashvili, founder of the National Movement political union, managed to cancel the results of the parliamentary elections held on November 20, 2003 and made ex-Georgian President Shevardnadze resign.

Saakashvili was elected President on January 4, 2004. He arrived in Baku for his first official visit as Georgia’s President. Saakashvili visited Baku to attend the funeral ceremony of former Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev before presidential elections in Georgia.*