TBILISI, December 23. /TASS/. Georgia’s Prime Minister Irakly Garibashvili has said he is stepping down. He did so in a televised address to the nation. Garibashvili has been Georgia’s prime minister since November 20, 2013.

"Each has the right to choose," Garibashvili said.

"I am proud that alongside Bidzina Ivanishvili [former prime minister and founder of the Georgian Dream political coalition — TASS] was fighting to rescue the country and to win at the parliamentary election on October 1, 2012," he said.

"In November 2013, Bidzina Ivanishvili stepped down at the peak of his popularity and gave an example of how to resign in time," he said adding that over his time in office [since November 20, 2013] "the reforms launched by then Prime Minister [Bidzina] Ivanishvili have been continued and in June 2014 Georgia sealed the EU Association Agreement."

In recent years "peace, stability, law and humanity have dawned on Georgia," he said.

"Positions are temporary things but Motherland and God are eternal," Garibashvili said. "A position for me — a position of either the interior minister or prime minister — has never been a goal in itself. A position for me is an opportunity to serve Motherland and the people. In the conditions when Georgia has been strengthened, the situation has stabilized and the domestic and foreign policies have improved, I make a decision to step down."