Georgia interested in building friendly relations with Russia, Speaker of Georgian parliament said

Russia may play a positive role in settling Abkhaz problem and assisting in reaching progress in this direction, the Georgian Speaker Nino Burjanadze stated in Yerevan during the press conference.

According to her, the Abkhaz problem was the main stumbling block in Georgia-Russia relations. Georgia is interested in building friendly relations with Russia and made some steps for reaching this improvement - starting from ratification of big framework agreement between two states, which after 6 year is not ratified by the Russian side, Burjanadze said. Meanwhile, the speaker stressed about accord reached during the recent meeting with Edward Shewardnadze and Vladimir Putin that Russia will support the idea of Abkhaz status at the UN Security Council session and trying to play a positive role in Abkhaz settlement.

The Georgian Speaker expressed hope for improvement of relations between Georgia and Russia, which according to her, misunderstand each other regarding most of issues - relations with NATO, political orientations of Tbilisi etc. Russia and NATO relations are more advanced and developed than Georgia's, therefore the Georgia side sometimes bewilder over "jealousy of the Russian side", Burjanadze stressed.