Georgian-Iranian Relations After The Russian-Georgian War in 2008

Foreign factors seriously affect the relationships between Iran and Georgia, and Iran-Georgian relations don’t make a linear progress depending on their relations with the USA, Israel and Russia. While Iran is careful about not breaking off the relations with Russia on its relations with Georgia, on the other side Georgia is prudential on sustaining its relations with the USA and Israel with regard to its relations with Iran. The Russia-Georgian War changed the balance in the region in August, 2008. The factor that makes Iran important for Georgia is the energy factor. Russia's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia's independence caused anxiety both in the region and in the international arena. Georgia broke off the diplomatic relations with Russia. Georgia expanded the economic relations with Iran in seeking of a new partner to weaken its dependency on Russia. Georgia realized that he must strenghten the realtions with Iran which is the secondary power in the region against the possible threat by Russia - one of the powerful states in the region. Iran considered Georgia as means for penetrating into the European market. In relations with Iran, Georgia have regard to the interests of the West, Israel and the USA – with those it is in a military cooperation. Having an agreement upon the visa-free regime between Georgia and Iran by 2010, the relations between the two countries began to flourish. The visa-free regime between the two countries in 2010-2013 promoted the development of cooperation in the fields of economy and tourism. On the 1st of July, 2013 Georgia stopped the free visa regime with Iran unilaterally in order not to weaken the relations with the USA and Israel. After cancellation of the USA sanctions on Iran, Georgia recovered the visa-free regime on the 15th of February, 2016 and the relations on economy and tourism fields again were strengthened between the two countries. Thus, despite of the fact that the war with Russia led to reinforcement of relations with Iran, Georgia doesn’t want to weaken the relations with the USA for Iran