Georgia's outgoing president urges EU to use more leverage to back protesters

BRUSSELS (AP) — Georgia’s outgoing president on Wednesday appealed to the European Union to press her country’s pro-Russia government to hold a new election amid a police crackdown on peaceful opposition protesters.

Tens of thousands of people have filled the streets regularly in recent weeks since the governing Georgian Dream party decided to suspend negotiations on joining the 27-nation EU. Police have increasingly used force and intimidation in their attempts to break up the rallies.

“Europe needs to find the leverage to act. If Europe cannot exert leverage on a country of 3.7 million, how can it expect to compete with the giants of the 21st century?” Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili told EU lawmakers in Strasbourg, France, in a speech punctuated by warm applause.

The EU granted Georgia candidate status for membership in December 2023, but put the accession bid on hold and cut financial support in June after the passage of a “foreign influence” law that was widely seen as a blow to democratic freedoms.

On Monday, EU foreign ministers agreed to impose visa restrictions on Georgian diplomats and government officials. They also weighed a list of Georgian representatives to impose sanctions on, but no agreement could be reached.

Zourabichvili suggested that this wasn't enough, and she urged the world’s biggest trading bloc to use its weight as Georgia’s biggest donor, biggest economic market and home to the South Caucasus country’s biggest diaspora.

“If we are honest, Europe so far has not fully lived (up) to the moment. Europe has, so far, met the challenge halfway,” she said. “Where Georgians have been fighting day and night, Europeans have been slow to wake up and slow to react.”

Former soccer player Mikheil Kavelashvili became Georgia’s new president on Saturday as the governing party tightened its grip on power following an election in October that the opposition alleges was rigged with Russia’s help.

“While European flags are being banned in Tbilisi, Georgians are still waiting for binding measures to come from Brussels and Washington,” Zourabichvili said, and she added that the street protests won't stop “until Georgia gets a free and fair election.” Some EU lawmakers held Georgian flags as she spoke.

“We either go to elections, or we go somewhere that we do not know, but that certainly will be a crisis that you will have to deal (with) in much direr conditions,” she warned.

Zourabichvili's appeal came on the eve of a summit of EU leaders in Brussels. A draft of their summit statement, seen by The Associated Press, suggests that no new action is planned, although the text could change by the time it's published on Thursday.

In the draft, the leaders express disappointment that the government has suspended the EU accession process until 2028.

They are due to condemn the police crackdown and say that “the Georgian authorities must respect the right to freedom of assembly and of expression, and refrain from using force. All acts of violence must be investigated and those responsible held accountable.”

Meanwhile, Zourabichvili said that new and dark laws are being "hastily adopted while people are on the streets, and nobody’s really paying attention to what happens in the parliament.”

“Everything already in Georgia is controlled by the one party, or one-man rule. It is difficult to distinguish what remains outside of that control,” she said.

Georgian outgoing President Salome Zourabichvili delivers her speech at the European Parliament and appealed to the European Union to press her country's pro-Russia government to hold a new election amid a police crackdown on peaceful opposition protesters, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024 in Strasbourg, eastern France. (AP Photo/Pascal Bastien)

Georgian outgoing President Salome Zourabichvili , left, gestures as European Parliament president Roberta Metsola looks on, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024 in Strasbourg, eastern France. (AP Photo/Pascal Bastien)

Georgian outgoing President Salome Zourabichvili delivers her speech at the European Parliament and appealed to the European Union to press her country's pro-Russia government to hold a new election amid a police crackdown on peaceful opposition protesters., Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024 in Strasbourg, eastern France. (AP Photo/Pascal Bastien)

Demonstrators hold portraits of activists injured during protests as they take part in an anti-government rally outside the Parliament building in Tbilisi, Georgia, on Saturday, Dec. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Zurab Tsertsvadze)

Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, left, attends an anti-government rally outside the Parliament building in Tbilisi, Georgia, on Saturday, Dec. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Zurab Tsertsvadze)

The Israeli military on Wednesday ordered another evacuation in central Gaza ahead of an offensive in the area, even as Israel and the militant group Hamas appeared to inch closer to a ceasefire in the 14-month war.

“This is an advance warning ahead of an offensive,” Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee posted on X. The order included four residential block areas in the urban refugee camp of Bureij, where Adraee claimed that Palestinian militants fired rockets toward Israel.

He asked the residents to move to a “humanitarian zone” in the Muwasi area. The Israeli media have issued frequent evacuation orders for different parts of Gaza throughout the war, displacing more than 90% of the population, most of them multiple times.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog said he will meet Wednesday with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's Mideast envoy, Adam Boehler, at his home in Jerusalem. Boehler, a former aid to Jared Kushner, met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week.

Talks to broker the ceasefire and hostage release deal have restarted after a monthslong pause. The deal on the table includes a six week pause in fighting in which Hamas would release 30 hostages, including three of four dual Israeli-U.S. citizens, in exchange for Israel releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Trump has said he wants a quick end to the war.

Israeli bombardment and offensives in Gaza have killed more than 45,000 Palestinians over the past 14 months, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry’s tally does not distinguish between combatants and civilians, but it says more than of half the dead were women and children.

Israel launched its campaign in retaliation for Hamas’ October 2023 attack on southern Israel in which militants killed some 1,200 people and abducted 250 others, around 100 of whom remain in captivity.

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GENEVA — The head of the U.N. migration agency said she was reassured by commitments she heard from Syria’s new caretaker government in meetings in Damascus, as the country seeks to rebuild after more than a half-century of rule under the Assad family.

Amy Pope, director-general of the International Organization for Migration, said in a phone interview Wednesday that Syria’s new leaders “recognize the job they have ahead of them is enormous and that they need the support of the international community.”

IOM estimates about 100,000 people — many looking to return to their former homes — have entered Syria from neighboring countries since Dec. 8, the day former President Bashar Assad fled the country as opposition fighters swarmed into the capital.

“We are also seeing about 85,000 people come out” into Lebanon through established border crossing points, she said. “It’s a rough figure: There’s certainly people who cross informally and so they’re not counted.”

Most of those found to be leaving are Shiite Muslims, she said. The armed groups who took control of Syria are primarily from the country’s majority Sunni Muslim community, including Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the terrorist-designated group that led the coalition of armed opposition groups that drove Assad from power and into asylum in Russia.

“There’s no question to me that at this moment in time, they are looking for ways to make this work, to be more inclusive, to build partnerships across the international community, to build partnerships with other governments,” Pope said of the caretaker government. “It’s just going to be a question of whether they can deliver.”

IOM said Pope was one of the first heads of a U.N. agency to visit Syria since Assad’s ouster, and she met with unspecified members of the caretaker government on Tuesday, as well as U.N. officials and advocacy groups.

She reaffirmed the IOM's commitment to Syria. The organization has been providing assistance to people in the country since 2014 and is seeking $30 million in urgent aid funding for the next four months to try to help nearly 685,000 people in the northwest of the country.

A torn picture of ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad, right, and his late father, President Hafez Assad, is seen attached at the Duty Free of the Damascus airport, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)