Georgia plans to lift a ban on opposition television station Imedi, acting President Nino Burjanadze said on Monday, a major demand of the former Soviet state's Western allies ahead of a January 5 presidential election.
Police raided Imedi's office on November 7 and smashed equipment after forcing anti-government protesters off the streets of Tbilisi with tear gas and plastic bullets.
The authorities said the television station, majority owned by presidential hopeful Badri Patartkatsishvili, had been calling for revolution. "We have made a decision to ask the General-Prosecutor's office to abolish a ban on Imedi," Burjanadze told a news briefing. "We hope all the procedures will be completed in two days and that Imedi will be able to start broadcasting again."
Saakashvili, a US ally, called the snap presidential election in January after the opposition protests. Georgia is at the centre of the Caucasus, a region which hosts a pipeline taking oil from the Caspian Sea to Europe and the focus of a power struggle between Russia and the United States.
Western critics say the vote could not be considered fair if Imedi, the largest opposition broadcaster, was banned. They immediately welcomed Burjanadze's statement. "This is a very positive statement," the European Union's special representative to the south Caucasus, Peter Semneby, told a news briefing. Multi-millionaire and opposition financier Patartkatsishvili has applied to run in Georgia's presidential election but faces accusations at home that he plotted a coup against President Mikhail Saakashvili.
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, the other shareholder in Imedi, had assumed full control of the broadcaster before the raid. Last week, Georgia said it wanted News Corp to take full ownership of Imedi, raising its stake from the current level of just under 50 percent. Burjanadze said talks with the company were going ahead and would be completed at the end of this week. "We hope that negotiations with News Corp will finish with a result," she said.
Saakashvili came to power in a peaceful 2003 revolution. He wants Georgia to join both Nato and the European Union and is feted in the West for his market reforms, but Georgia's opposition says he has mishandled the economy and presides over a corrupt government. He denies the accusations.
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