Iran Increases Pressure on Georgia

Executive Summary: Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze met Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on October 16. Kobakhidze described a friendly talk about tourism, but Tehran’s account said they discussed joint initiatives and U.S. sanctions against Iran.

• Iranian Ambassador to Georgia Seyed Ali Moujani has repeatedly challenged Georgia’s diplomatic positions, provoking public backlash through controversial statements about Georgian history, territorial claims, and Tbilisi’s cooperation with Washington.
• Georgia’s compliance with U.S. sanctions on Iranian airlines highlights the limits of its rapprochement with Tehran, despite Georgian Dream distancing itself from the West and refusing to join renewed EU sanctions against Iran.

On October 16, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze met Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in Yerevan on the sidelines of the 17th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. According to Kobakhidze, they discussed bilateral relations and positive cooperation in tourism (Facebook/IrakliKobakhidze, October 16). Kobakhidze publicized the meeting on social media under the label “Paid Advertising” amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington, seemingly signaling Tbilisi’s willingness to maintain open cooperation with Iran despite the potential costs to relations with the United States. The Iranian presidential administration’s press release offered a different account of the meeting, saying the two leaders discussed “practical cooperation,” “the implementation of joint initiatives,” and “U.S. sanctions against Iran.” The statement also quoted Kobakhidze as saying that “Georgia maintained clear positions toward neighboring countries and opposed any foreign intervention in their domestic affairs” (President of Iran, October 16).

The meeting came amid mounting Iranian pressure on Georgia. On September 30, the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned Iranian Ambassador to Georgia Seyed Ali Moujani and asked him to respect diplomatic norms and refrain from interpreting Georgian history (Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, September 30). The diplomatic protest was prompted by a statement Moujani published on his Facebook page on September 25, in which he effectively offended the national and religious sentiments of Georgians by declaring that he was speaking not as a diplomat but as a historian and intended to present his own interpretation of historical events related to Georgian–Iranian relations, particularly the fate of Queen Ketevan (Facebook/AliMoujani, September 25). To signal its intentions, the Iranian Embassy in Tbilisi projected an image of Saint Ketevan the Martyr onto the building’s façade. Moujani presented this gesture as a “symbol of historical memory, around which many different historical interpretations exist.” Ketevan, a 17th-century queen of the Georgian kingdom of Kakheti, is revered in Georgia as Saint Ketevan the Martyr. In 1624, after refusing the Iranian Shah Abbas I’s demand that she renounce Christianity and convert to Islam, she was brutally tortured and executed. Moujani’s attempt to revisit the history of Saint Ketevan’s torture sparked outrage within Georgian society and among representatives of the Georgian Orthodox Church. Georgian Orthodox Church Protopresbyter Giorgi Zviadadze stated, “Queen Ketevan is a luminary of the Georgian Church, a great martyr. Naturally, the Church has an unequivocal position on this matter: she was tortured. Any attempt to rewrite history and find a different pretext or justification for what happened is absolutely unacceptable” (Netgazeti, September 29).

For the first time, public pressure compelled representatives of Georgian Dream, which has recently moved closer to Iran and demonstrated loyalty to the current regime, to respond relatively firmly to Moujani’s provocations. Georgian Parliamentary Foreign Relations Committee Chair Nikoloz Samkharadze urged Moujani to respect diplomatic protocol and avoid historical references, emphasizing that such remarks were outside his remit. Samkharadze reminded Moujani that relations between Georgia and Persia had not always been amicable and that their shared history included difficult, painful chapters (1tv, September 29).

Ketevan was not the first historical controversy Moujani had stirred. On September 12, he posted a political map on social media that omitted Eastern Georgia, hinting that the region had historically been subject to Persian territorial claims (Facebook/AliMoujani, September 12).

Moujani’s growing proximity to Georgia’s political corridors of power stands in stark contrast to his predecessors, who generally kept their distance from the country’s political elite and maintained a low public profile. Moujani, by contrast, has become a prominent and controversial figure in Georgia’s political landscape, and his statements and conduct have raised growing public concern.

His interventions have also extended to Georgia’s compliance with U.S. sanctions. On September 8, the United States imposed sanctions on companies supporting Iran’s aviation sector, including those operating flights to Georgia. Two days later, the Georgian Civil Aviation Agency announced on September 10 that Georgia would fully comply with the U.S. sanctions on Iranian airlines (Facebook/GeorgianCivilAviationAgency, September 10). Referring to the agency’s decision, Moujani claimed that Tbilisi had made the move “for the greatness of America” and added another veiled threat, stating, “Iranians will travel, see, and learn … and perhaps, through this new choice, new friendships will also emerge” (Facebook/AliMoujani, September 12). He implied that sanctions against Iranian airlines could deter Iranian tourists from visiting Georgia and instead redirect them to Russian-occupied Abkhazia. On September 14, he issued a new threat, stating that sanctions could push ethnic Georgians in Iran away from their homeland and jeopardize their language and national identity. He also warned that Georgia could suffer economic losses from joining Western sanctions (Facebook/EmbassyofIraninTbilisi,Georgia, September 14). Despite these threats, Iranian airlines operated their last flights to Georgia on September 20, and their operations were restricted from September 21 (Formula News, September 21).

According to the National Bank of Georgia, Iran accounts for just 2.6 percent of Georgia’s international tourism revenue. Amid the war and escalating tensions in the Middle East, however, the number of visitors from Iran had already dropped by 65 percent before air travel restrictions were introduced. The decline in Iranian tourist arrivals has also affected other countries across the region (Business Media Georgia, September 10).

Georgia did not join the renewed EU sanctions against Iran adopted on July 24 (Formula News, August 17). Its refusal indicates that solidarity with the European Union is not an absolute foreign policy priority for Georgian Dream. At the same time, Georgian officials are not yet prepared to ignore Washington’s interests to the same extent, as shown by their decision to join U.S. sanctions on Iran’s aviation sector. This inconsistency may irritate Tehran, which sees that, despite Georgian Dream’s rapprochement with Iran and its distancing from the West, Tbilisi does not intend to abandon cooperation with the United States completely.

The March 30 telephone conversation between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Kobakhidze also produced a reaction from Moujani (JAM-news, March 30). The following day, Moujani published a warning on Facebook that implicitly encouraged Tbilisi to maintain its political distance from Washington. “No one should forget one fact about [U.S. President] Donald Trump and American policy: when certain countries, whether deliberately or hastily, provide their territory and airspace to outside adventurers, sooner or later they have to pay the price for it within their own borders.” He also warned, “No country is immune to the consequences of regional crises. The crisis is much closer than it may seem at first glance” (Facebook/AliMoujani, March 31).

Tehran may fear that if the Trump administration turns its attention to Tbilisi and adopts a more accommodating stance toward Georgian Dream, Georgia could prioritize its ties with Washington over Tehran’s interests. Iran may also be concerned that Tbilisi would be unlikely to reject a U.S. request to restrict the activities of Iranian companies operating in Georgia that are suspected of helping circumvent Western sanctions. According to the Economic Policy Research Center (EPRC), a Tbilisi-based think tank, the number of Iranian companies in Georgia has increased by approximately 510 percent since 2012, exceeding 12,800 by 2025–2026 (EPRC, August 9).

A comparable rise in economic activity has not accompanied this sharp increase in the number of Iranian companies. No significant increase in employment, business turnover, or officially registered investment volume has been observed (EPRC, August 9). This discrepancy between company registration dynamics and key economic indicators raises questions about the nature of some of these companies’ activities. In this context, on August 8, the United States sanctioned Shelbit, a Georgia-registered cryptocurrency company founded by an Iranian citizen. Washington accused the company and its founder of facilitating financial transactions linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and supporting networks used to evade sanctions (Radio Tavisufleba, August 9).

On October 26, Moujani proposed using Iran’s transit infrastructure to help Georgian companies export to Afghanistan. In a social media post, he stated that he had already discussed the initiative with representatives of Afghan trade networks and that a special report had been prepared to help Georgian businesses identify potential partners in the Afghan market (Facebook/AliMoujani, October 26). The proposal adds an economic dimension to Moujani’s active engagement with Georgia. The initiative also raises questions about the potential implications of routing Georgian exports through Iran, particularly amid U.S. sanctions on Iran and concerns about the activities of Iranian-linked businesses in Georgia. Moujani’s previous diplomatic service in Afghanistan, where he was declared persona non grata and expelled, further heightens sensitivity around the proposal. Any expansion of trade links involving Afghanistan would require careful consideration of the risks associated with sanctions compliance, the transparency of commercial transactions, and Afghanistan’s long-standing problems with illicit opiate production and trafficking.

Since Georgia regained independence in 1991, Iran has played a limited role in shaping Tbilisi’s foreign policy and remained a relatively marginal geopolitical actor, partly because it shares no land border. This is gradually changing under the Georgian Dream government, whose distancing from the West and deepening ties with Tehran have created opportunities for Iran to expand its presence and influence in Georgia. Moujani’s assertive conduct, including interventions in historically and politically sensitive debates, reflects this shift. Alongside Russia, Iran is emerging as another external actor whose growing influence could undermine Georgia’s international standing and further erode the trust of its Western partners.

https://jamestown.org/iran-increases-pressure-on-georgia