Farewell Interview with Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Recorded 3 July
2025, Tbilisi, Georgia
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AGAINST DELIVERY]
RFE/RL
[Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty]:Mrs.
Ambassador, thank you for this chance, I guess the last chance this time of an
interview. Of course, every person has the right to define why and when to
retire, and the ambassadors also. But my duty is to ask you [a] question about your
decision, though you mentioned that this is a fully personal decision, but there
are several kinds of speculations about this decision, like being in some kind
of conflict with President Donald Trump’s Administration foreign policy, being
overwhelmed with this endless crisis in Georgia, political crisis, being targeted
by the intense disinformation campaign with this “Global War Party,” “deep
state” conspiracy, etc. So would you please tell us a little bit more about
that?
AMBASSADOR ROBIN DUNNIGAN: Well, first of all, you know, thank you for having
me, and in case I don’t have a chance to say it later in the interview, thank
you to
RFE/RL for the amazing work you do. All of your team here provides such
an invaluable service. I think we, the world needs more independent media now
than we ever have, especially here in Georgia.
So, it was a personal decision. My husband and I have been diplomats for 33
years. It’s a long time, and we feel that it was time to go to the next phase of
our lives and explore what we could do there. It’s interesting that you talk
about how it was perceived and talked about here.
RFE/RL: And it is at the midst of the term. That’s the issue.
AMBASSADOR DUNNIGAN: But I made it very clear to the government right
after I made my announcement to my team. I told senior officials in the
government that it was a personal decision. I wasn’t being recalled. And
immediately, within hours, the, what I would say, disinformation campaign by the
Georgia[n] Dream government began saying that I was being recalled, that my policy
was at odds with the President's, none of which is true regarding policy in
Georgia. I represent the policy of the President and the Secretary of State;
nothing I have done here under either Administration has been out of line with
the President or the Secretary of State’s policies, and any caricature or
suggestion otherwise is just simply false.
RFE/RL: There were also some regrets, mostly from the opposition politicians,
and not only that you are leaving country -- this country in a very turbulent
time, and [a] country which has a very significant and clear shifts in its
foreign policy. Opposition leaders are being imprisoned: prominent journalist,
Mzia
Amaghlobeli is in jail; several dozen activists are imprisoned; [the] general
political environment is critical -- election environment deteriorated,
significantly, and extremely damaged legislation. So what would be your advice
or wish to the Georgian people to the next U.S. ambassador, which is still to be
defined as far as I know. What would be your wishes or advises [sic]?
AMBASSADOR DUNNIGAN: So, it is true. It’s a very difficult time here in
Georgia. I’m extremely concerned about all of those anti-democratic measures
that you’ve just mentioned: the imprisonment of political opposition figures,
the targeting of civil society representatives for trying to promote rule of law
here, media freedom, targeting of journalists. And so, what I said yesterday in
our Independence Day celebration was -- I will leave a piece of my heart behind
here in Georgia; but it doesn’t mean I’ll stop working in support of Georgia and
its democracy. I’ll just be doing it from the other side of the Atlantic in a
different way, because I very much believe that this country has a democratic
future. I’m concerned that with the current government, the current leadership,
that that doesn’t seem as clear to me as it did before.
RFE/RL: Do you already know where will you continue on the other side of the
Atlantic?
AMBASSADOR DUNNIGAN: Not yet. I have some ideas, but I’ll have more to say
about that later.
RFE/RL: Would you be so kind to compare the situation in Georgia when you
arrived two years ago and [the] situation in the country now, when you are gonna
leave?
AMBASSADOR DUNNIGAN: Yes, it’s a really good question, and it’s an
interesting way to think about how much has changed in that period of time.
So maybe the first thing I want to say -- because many officials in the government
have said frequently -- that the
Strategic Partnership with the United States as a
partnership on paper only. And I find that comment to not only be not true -- I
find it offensive, because we’ve worked together since 1991 to build a
partnership that’s been good for both of our countries. And when I got here, we
still talked about the partnership between our countries, including Georgia[n]
Dream, as the positive partnership that it is. And it’s very offensive to the
U.S. government when Georgia[n] Dream every day says something negative about the
United States or the West publicly, when we feel that we’ve invested so much in
this partnership.
And I’m not just talking about money. We’ve invested time, training. We’ve
brought experts over. And I know nobody wants to hear a big litany of lists, but
I think it’s important sometimes to put it into context: We’ve spent $1.2
billion building the
Georgia Defence Forces, equipping them, training them;
equipping and training the
Georgian Coast Guard. We’ve supported 8,000 students
to study in the United States, 1,700 military officials to study in the United
States. We’ve helped farmers export their products; improve their farming
techniques. We’ve worked together to eradicate hepatitis C here. We’ve helped
make Georgia a regional leader in healthcare. I could go on and on -- DFC, the
Development Finance Corporation, has invested $800 million here. The
Millennial [Millennium] Challenge Corporation has helped 30,000 teachers. We’ve touched every public
school in this country. We’ve built clinics -- all of that to say -- it’s a real
partnership.
And when I got here, the government, the leaders, the top leaders in the
country, talked about it like a real partnership. And in my first three months,
we actually made some progress in improving the relationship. That happened sort
of October, November, December, January. By the end of January of 2024, when
everything seemed to be going pretty well for Georgia, including receiving EU
candidate status, which the U.S. supported, and I supported, from about that
time, the Georgian Dream government has taken step after step that I believe has
increasingly isolated Georgia from the United States, has taken Georgia off its
own constitutional goal of becoming a member of the EU, has provoked in a
negative way its greatest partners, the United States and West, Europe, and has
really hurt its reputation, particularly in the business community.
And I think your listeners or viewers know what all of those steps were, and I’m
happy to go into them, but frankly, it’s really difficult to understand why. And
I came here ready and willing and open to working really constructively with GD
[Georgian Dream].
And it seems that every time I found a willing good partner who we were making
progress with, sooner or later, that minister or senior leader was replaced, or
decisions that they made were overturned by somebody more senior than them. And
the result is that today the relationship is in a very, very difficult
relationship between our governments, is in a very difficult situation. And I
think Georgia’s reputation has really suffered, particularly in the last month
with the most recent anti-democratic actions, the arrest of the opposition
leaders, etc., and the anti-democratic legislation. I think many people are
shaking their heads just asking what is going on. It’s a big change.
RFE/RL: You call it isolation, nothing more to be added. Is that just isolation
or is there clearer shift of the country’s vectors?
AMBASSADOR DUNNIGAN: So again, I think you have to ask yourself, I don’t
want to speculate on the motives of GD, but you have to ask yourself, to what
end have they taken this series of actions over the last year, in [a] couple of
months year and a half, that have made the relationships of their greatest
partners and allies so difficult?
You know, the government talks a lot about sovereignty, for example, and we have
been the greatest supporters of Georgia’s sovereignty. We are the biggest
supporter of the annual UN resolution on the occupied territories. In fact, we
help the Georgian government get votes. We and the Europeans are strong
supporters at the Geneva International Discussions over every round since GID
began. We helped rebuild the country after Russia’s 2008 invasion, and we’ve
helped build a credible deterrence force in the Georgian Defense Forces in the
Georgian Coast Guard. So that’s what we’ve done. And yet, every day, GD says
publicly that our partnership means nothing, that they’re waiting to see what we
will do to get our partnership back on track, and continues to say negative
things about the United States and the West in general. So further isolating
itself from the United States. Why is really hard to understand.
I can only, I shouldn’t speculate, but because he has said it himself, I can
speculate that
Bidzina Ivanishvili is putting his personal interests above the
interests of the country. And I say that because we’ve requested to meet with
him. The Trump Administration requested that I meet with him to deliver a
letter. I requested to meet with him under the Biden Administration to discuss
how we can get our relationship back on track, and he’s refused. And his stated
reading reason for refusing is that he’s under sanctions.
So it seems to me that if the de facto leader of this country is unwilling to
meet with leadership of the United States or receive a message from the Trump
Administration, he is, in fact, putting his personal interests against the
interests of the Georgian people.
RFE/RL: He wrote [that] he offered to and also in parallel with this this
disinformation, “deep state” conspiracy, by the way, I would like, for our
viewers to hear from you about the “deep state” conspiracy issue also. In
parallel, Ivanishvili himself and
Kobakhidze and other GD representatives, keep
repeating that, by the way, Kobakhidze in his June 27th speech at the parliament
repeated again, that restoration of Strategic Partnership with a precise
guidance that would cover benefits for both countries that they are ready for
that. And they keep repeating that that the relations with the U.S. is very
important priority for them. How would you comment that? Because the audience
hears different messages, and audiences also diversified.
AMBASSADOR DUNNIGAN: I haven’t seen that. And I’ll tell you why.
Typically, I wouldn’t comment on private diplomatic correspondence or
conversations, but because the government has chosen to do so, I will reference
a couple of data points.
Early in the Trump Administration, I went back to Washington to meet with senior
officials in the new Administration to talk about our Georgia policy and to have
guidance on what they would like their first message to the Georgian government
to be. I came back from those meetings and I met with the foreign minister. And
I laid out for her very clearly two or three steps GD could take to help set our
relationship back on track.
Three days later, again, I wouldn’t usually comment on this, but the Prime
Minister himself mentioned it, GD leadership sent a letter to me for the Trump
Administration -- a private letter, this is not the public letter -- which frankly
was threatening, insulting, unserious, and was received extremely poorly in
Washington, extremely poorly. So it took us a while to come up with a response.
That’s true. And I think it took a while because people were so surprised to get
such a correspondence from leadership of one country to to my country.
In the meantime, while we were coming up with our response, the Prime Minister
issued an open letter, and then I went to the Prime Minister and said -- I have a
response from Secretary Rubio that he has asked me to deliver to Bidzina
Ivanishvili. And Bidzina Ivanishvili said no. I’m happy to meet with the Prime
Minister anytime. He didn’t ask to meet with me separately, but I was told to
deliver this correspondence from the Trump Administration directly to Bidzina
Ivanishvili and he said no. I wasn’t asked to deliver it to the Prime Minister.
So, the crazy thing is…
RFE/RL: Did you ask in Washington why to Bidzina Ivanishvili and not to the
prime minister?
AMBASSADOR DUNNIGAN: I think most people in the world recognize that
Bidzina Ivanishvili runs the government.
The crazy thing is, really, is that the asks of how to get the relationship back
on track aren’t that hard. One of the first things is, one of the first steps
would be -- stop the anti American rhetoric. Stop saying things that aren’t true
about the United States. And there’s a lot that GD says that is not true about
the United States: that we tried to start a second front here -- not true; that
my predecessor tried to foment revolution here -- not true; that our strategic
partnership is a partnership on paper only -- not true; that I’m being recalled
by my government -- not true.1 I can go on and on.
What America has always wanted with Georgia, with Georgia[n] Dream, is to keep
building our partnership together in a mutually beneficial way. I came here
completely committed to doing that with whatever government the Georgian people
chose, and that was when I arrived -- GD. And I would have been happy to continue
doing that. Unfortunately, the actions of the government have made it very
difficult, and I think you can see the impact on Georgia’s reputation in
Washington, in part by the MEGOBARI Act. That’s a strong bipartisan support by
Republicans and Democrats for this legislation that calls out GD for some of the
anti-democratic anti-American actions it has taken.
RFE/RL: What can you say about political significance and about its perspective
to be finally adopted and signed?
AMBASSADOR DUNNIGAN: Well, it passed the house with overwhelming support,
bipartisan support. Now it’s in the Senate. I’ve heard from several people in
the Senate that they believe it will eventually pass, as you know, our Senate’s
been, as you might not know, but our Senate’s been working hard on other
legislation over the last month. But political significance, I think, is really
important because it shows you that the actions of this government, how they’re
being perceived by Republicans and Democrats in our Congress. Now, that’s not
the executive branch, and Congress doesn’t speak for the executive branch, but
certainly, there are very influential politicians who have relationships with
the executive branch. And so I think it’s it shows you in part what’s happening
to George’s reputation.
And maybe one of the one element of this that people don’t talk about that much
is the business element. Now, I come from an economic background, and I came
here really committed to strengthening our economic relationship. And I had
several good conversations with the former minister of economy about things we
could do to do that. In the end, increasing U.S. investment to Georgia became
very difficult because Georgia was increasingly perceived as a country that was
getting closer to Russia, Iran, and China, by business people. There were
increasing concerns about safety. There were increasing concerns about rule of
law and the judicial system. And what we saw as most U.S. companies freezing any
plans to expand their investments here or make new investments. And in fact, I
think most figures show that foreign direct investment is down by 35 to 40% over
the last year. So these actions are having a real impact, and the question is
why?
RFE/RL: Yesterday, we saw, I mean, the reception at the U.S. Embassy for the
Independence Day, usually it is supported by the sponsor companies, Georgian
companies, I mean, or joint ones. What Georgian business give you some messages,
some signals about their problems and about their worries?
AMBASSADOR DUNNIGAN: Absolutely. I hear from economic leaders of this
country, of the private sector all of the time. And what I hear is that they too
are worried about what’s happening to Georgia’s reputation. And, you know, I
brought two years in a row, I brought large groups of Georgian business people
to the United States for one of our investment conferences. And I helped set up
meetings for them in the White House, at the State Department, with the
Development Finance Corporation, helping them increase their economic ties to
the United States in ways that are good for Georgians and Americans. And I know
many of those business leaders and others that I’ve spoken to here are worried
about the reputational damage of their companies, given the political actions
that are taking place here.
And again, it’s really a disappointment because I think Georgia has so much
promise to be a regional leader, to be a regional leader in the Middle Corridor,
and I think GD could turn this around if it wanted to. It wouldn’t be that hard.
RFE/RL: When you met, GD’s Foreign Minister Maka Botchorishvili, I understand
that was not a public conversation, but would she use just to know this “deep
state” kind of conspiracy issues during the conversation?
AMBASSADOR DUNNIGAN: I won’t comment on my private conversations with the
Foreign Minister, but I will comment on the “deep state” and GD using “deep
state” all the time. It used to be “Global War Party,” first, you know, it’s
kind of this conspiratorial, “global war party,” the greater forces, the big
banks, profiting off a war…
RFE/RL: It had started before you arrived.
AMBASSADOR DUNNIGAN: Yes, yes. And then it turned into “deep state.”
RFE/RL: You were saying that it’s ridiculous.
AMBASSADOR DUNNIGAN: It is ridiculous. It’s bizarre. It’s conspiratorial,
and it’s ridiculous. So, and they’ve used it to say that embassy is actually…
some people in GD said the embassy is, you know, part of the “deep state” -- no,
we’re not. We represent the United States government, the Secretary of State,
and the President of the United States. We implement their policies. We’re
implementing the policy of the President to make America safer, stronger, and
more prosperous. We’re doing that, trying to work together with Georgians.
And you know, I’d hate to in this interview, only talking about the very
difficult and strained relationship with the government, because, in fact, I
have loved my time here, loved it, because of the relationship between Americans
and the Georgian people. And I’ve never, in my 33 years of living and working
around the world, I’ve never met people who are as warm and generous, who have
such an amazing culture, and they open their hearts and their homes to
everybody, and they’re committed to this country becoming a part of the West,
part of the Western family of democracies, where I think everybody knows Georgia
belongs.
So the experience for my family and I in Georgia has been amazing because of the
people of Georgia.
RFE/RL: I’m sure, but those people, exactly are in trouble. I mean, aspiration
is perspective is not clear at all. And how would you comment events like
yesterday’s it was revealed yesterday that deputy Foreign Minister visited Iran
embassy. This type of relationship of Georgia, how sensitive is the U.S.? How
important is that for the U.S.?
AMBASSADOR DUNNIGAN: It’s very important to my
Administration if countries
are increasing and building and strengthening their ties with Iran or with
China. It’s very important in my Administration, to my government. And again, I
think you have to ask yourself, at the same time that you’re publicly
criticizing and telling falsehoods about the United States and taking actions
that you know are going to worsen your relationship with the United States,
who’s been your strongest supporter over decades, why would you be doing that on
the one hand, and yet taking actions that seem to indicate you’re looking to get
closer to Iran and China on the other? It’s inexplicable to me. I’m not going to
try to explain it, but I think you have to ask yourself, why?
RFE/RL: You started listing, you just named one point [for GD] to stop talking
bad about the U.S., but would you please elaborate more on those, President
Trump and Secretary Rubio’s top priorities and steps that Georgia can take to
demonstrate it’s seriousness about improving its relationship with the United
States. What can you say more? One more, or two more?
AMBASSADOR DUNNIGAN: Again, I don’t want to comment in detail about our
private conversations. I respect diplomatic correspondence and try to keep
those. But I don’t think it’s difficult to understand what my Administration’s
priorities are, because they’re very clear about those priorities -- make America
safer, stronger, and more prosperous.
I was very specific with the foreign minister and would have been very specific
with Bidzina Ivanishvili on two or three specific things the government could
do. The first of those I’m happy to say aloud, which is stop the anti-American
rhetoric and the disinformation about the United States. But I don’t think it’s
that difficult to look at the policy of my Administration, my President, and
figure out what kinds of things you could do to improve the relationship.
This idea that it’s up to us, the United States, to do something more than we’ve
already done for Georgia, that the ball is in our court. It seems to me to be a
strategy that doesn’t make a lot of sense.
RFE/RL: There was no chance at all to meet Ivanishvili personally. During all
the term years spent here.
AMBASSADOR DUNNIGAN: He did very briefly in the October, November time
period reach out and say that he would be willing to meet. That was. 2024. Right
before your elections. Around then. And I think that was a time when my
leadership in Washington and I decided that it was close to the elections, right
before the elections, if I’m remembering the timing correctly, it was very close
to your elections. And then things got very difficult here very quickly after
the November 28th announcement that GD was stopping the EU accession process,
the protest began the violent crackdown on protesters began, and that was a very
difficult time to meet with him. So there was this very short window, and it was
toward the end of the Biden Administration. But he has not accepted the
invitation from the Trump Administration.
RFE/RL: One message for the civil society and independent media in Georgia. It’s
taste, that continues, in this country, that continues, its very important work.
AMBASSADOR DUNNIGAN: It’s a great note to end on, because at our
Independence Day reception yesterday, my speech was about democracy and the key
tenets of democracy -- promise, duty, and optimism. And the duty of democracy is
that all of us work to cherish our freedoms and to ensure that future and
generations enjoy those freedoms. Civil society and independent media here play
an incredibly important role in doing that. Civil society that’s promoting free
and fair elections, that’s trying to ensure that disabled people have rights
here, that try to ensure that elderly people have safe living places, civil
society that tries to ensure rule of law works for everybody in the country.
These are organizations that are trying to ensure that some of these core
elements of a functioning democracy survive, and that they’re being targeted
because some of their views are at odds with the views of the government is
really concerning. Independent media even more so. In this day and age of
disinformation, disinformation from the Kremlin, disinformation from all around
the world, having true independent media, do truth telling is essential for our
democracy.
So I think it’s extremely concerning that some core elements of a democracy,
civil society, independent media, opposition, political parties. No, you don’t
have to vote for them, but by putting all of them in jail, you’re almost
guaranteed that you’re not going to have a functioning democracy. And I think
it’s more important now than ever at this moment in history that we all do what
we can to ensure that we give our democratic freedoms to our kids. So I wish the
civil society organizations an independent media of this country in all
Georgians, really, the best of luck in that quest.
1
Effective, even commanding use of
symploce
("that...not true")
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