ST. PETERSBURG. June 26 (Interfax) - Russia welcomes Georgian politicians' initiatives on normalizing relations between the two countries and stands ready to take such steps, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said.
"We welcome the aforementioned initiatives. We are ready to follow this path," Zakharova said at a press briefing in St. Petersburg on Wednesday.
"It was not Russia that initiated the severance of relations with Georgia" in 2008, she said.
"It happened at the initiative of the regime of [then Georgian President Mikheil] Saakashvili. And conditions for restoring bilateral relations that have been put forth since then have been at odds with the existing realities in the region," Zakharova said.
"Back in 2012, the Georgian authorities proposed launching the process of normalizing bilateral relations, and Russia immediately supported it then," she said.
"Consequently, we continue to believe that it meets the interests of our two peoples who share a common history, culture, close economic ties, and literally millions of threads of people's fates," Zakharova said.