“We don’t want to play politics”

I have been following some of this news about the resumption of the first direct flights between Moscow and Tbilisi since the 2008 invasion.  Though they were supposed to start several days ago, each government decided to play around just a few more times with cancellations and officialistic hyperbole.

Below is just a brief quote from Reuters which really drives the point home – people don’t want to suffer the politics of their governments in every aspect of their life.  If they have family in Georgia, Russia, Cuba, Iran, or even the United States, a person should be able to go wherever they want to go.  Of course this doesn’t come close to solving all the diplomatic problems in the Russia-Georgia relationship, which should be independent from someone’s ability to visit grandma. 

“It’s great that there are flights because we have many friends and relatives in Russia and we couldn’t see them without flying through other countries,” said Georgian passenger Nana Samadalashvili.

“We don’t want to play politics, we just don’t want to have to go through all of this,” she said.