Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze demanded Sunday that President Salome Zourabichvili must leave office at the end of her term this month, dismissing her claim that she would refuse to step down.
Zourabichvili said Saturday she would stay in office because the new parliament was illegitimate and had no authority to name her successor.
Georgia, a country of 3.8 million people at the intersection of Europe and Asia, has been plunged into crisis since the governing Georgian Dream party said Thursday it was halting European Union accession talks for the next four years.
Facing condemnation from the U.S. and defiance from his own president, Kobakhidze also praised police Sunday for cracking down on protesters, who he said were acting on foreign orders to undermine the state.
The EU and the U.S. were alarmed by what they see as Georgia's shift away from a pro-Western path and back toward Russia's orbit.
Big anti-government protests have taken place in the capital Tbilisi for the past three nights and police have fired water cannon and tear gas into the crowds.
Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev said Sunday that an attempted revolution was taking place in Georgia. The former Russian president said on Telegram that Georgia was "moving rapidly along the Ukrainian path, into the dark abyss. Usually this sort of thing ends very badly."
Prime Minister Kobakhidze dismissed criticism by the United States, which has condemned the use of "excessive force" against demonstrators.
"Despite the heaviest systematic violence applied yesterday by the violent groups and their foreign instructors, the police acted at a higher standard than the American and European ones and successfully protected the state from another attempt to violate the constitutional order," he told a press conference.
Kobakhidze also shrugged off Washington's announcement Saturday that it was suspending its strategic partnership with Georgia. He said this was a "temporary event," and Georgia would talk to the new administration of President-elect Donald Trump when it takes office in January.
