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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well now, it’s worth remembering while some of our own politicians are fighting to get the country out of Europe, politicians in other countries are fighting to get into the club. President Saakashvili of Georgia is one such man, he wants his country to be a member of the European Union. Well I interviewed him earlier and I started by asking him if he thought it was odd that the attitude towards Europe in this country is so different from his own.

MIKHEIL SAAKASHVILI: Well you know, that evolves from the west to the east and more east you get, more enthusiastic you become. I think it depends on the circumstances and the point here is the different level of economies, we are still coming from a very low level, we had double digit growth for most of the years of my previous government but still we are not there yet so European Union obviously is a promise also for the economy but also it is better off for us, we Georgians are not only Europeans, we are enthusiastically Europeans because we have always been aspiring to come to our natural house. This is a country of old European culture, from Greece, the country of the Golden Fleece and the Argonauts, one of the oldest Grecian countries in the world so there are many, parts of it, many, many credentials we have that make us natural Europeans. So whereas nobody questions in Britain whether UK is Europe or not per se, right, it is a matter of the European Union, whereas Europeanness means European Union. So that’s this historic and cultural thing which makes Eastern Europe different. We have to fight for our identity and for us it is the European Union.

DM: You mentioned history there, no doubt you are thinking about your legacy as your presidency comes, approaches the end there, would that be your legacy established if Georgia was firmly on the road to join the European Union and indeed other international bodies like NATO?

MS: Yes, well I think Georgia has created alternative model of development where there was only one or two models, like chaos under Yeltsin and some kind of order under Putin and then under my previous government we became, on the one hand we were a democracy and we proved we were a democracy, also by the way by losing elections, last October, but also we managed to prove that we became the safest country in Europe according to the European Union, we became the least corrupt country in Europe according again to the European Union, we are even less corrupt than some Scandinavian countries, safer than Iceland. We became the easiest place in Eastern and Central Europe to do business and just behind UK in the world bank rate world-wide rankings in terms of the business environment. So all these credentials have shown that this is part of our legacy so of course part of it is European Union aspirations. Now it is a difficult region, on the one hand people don’t want trouble so they want to stay away but on the other hand the examples are so compelling why people should not stay away. But the jury is still out.

DM: Can I ask you about your discussions with the Secretary of State Kerry, John Kerry? Did he raise the issue of the Boston bombings? There has been an allegation that one of them, Tamilan Tsarnave, the elder brother, actually received some training or went to a seminar last year in Georgia?

MS: No, I think that’s the usual Russian stuff. They have been trying to do these allegations for all these years. Now one has to mention that Georgia has contributed greatly to the world terror, we are the second biggest contributors after the US per capita to the operation in Afghanistan, we have suffered considerable casualties there, we are the biggest non-NATO contributor there and we also had fighting with … First of all Chechens, a lot of Chechens were trained by Russian secret services back then, by FSP in the 90s to combat Georgian troops on the side of separatists inside Georgia, in Abkhazia in the 90s and people like Shamil Basayev they got first their combat experience in Georgia on behalf of the Russians and our local separatists. So in that war sides have been switched several times so it is a much more complicated issue and certainly there is background to it which is not so clear for Russia, what they were doing at the initial stages, how the whole problem emerged in the first place. Now on the other hand we also had fighting from last September inside Georgia when the …

DM: But the allegation is that these Chechens had been trained by Georgia.

MS: As far as I know they have never been to Georgia. The Russians are our neighbours, Chechens are our neighbours, people move back and forth but this particular ones haven’t been to Georgia but Russia have been saying this all the way through and the reason that they have been saying that is that every time they wanted to justify their interference of our whatever, internal politics, meddling into and trying to tamper with our foreign policy orientation, to try to keep west away the easiest thing, the most simple thing that came to their minds is to say, oh by the way they are training terrorists, it’s a common problem. We, despite the fact that we were at war with Russia, last year we had this episode where we combatted with this group of Chechens that were trying to cross into Russian territory from us and some of the Georgian officers were killed. It was tough fighting, they were well equipped, these people, whoever gives their funding and they are fighting with our troops and they were fighting very fiercely so we could from first hand see what the problem is that Russia is facing. Of course any spill over of this problem into our territory would be a disaster so Georgia will do our best, no matter what are the complex with the Russia, to keep away this problem at bay.

DM: Okay, Mr President, thank you very much indeed.

MS: Thank you so much.