NATO arrives in Georgia

Today the Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg and the Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Garibashvili have opened a joint training center on the territory of the Krtsanisi National Training Center (near Tbilisi).

President of Georgia Giorgi Margvelashvili as the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the country, top officials of the legislative and executive powers of Georgia, representatives of NATO and Georgian officers were present at the ceremony, Sputnik Georgia reported.

The training center was opened as part of a package of measures on encouraging Georgia in its intention to join the Alliance. Soldiers and officers from NATO countries and partners of NATO will train there.

Vakhtang Maisaya, a member of the Expert Club of Georgia, told Vestnik Kavkaza that it will be a common center for officers and soldiers not only from the NATO countries, but also NATO partners, who will participate in peacemaking operations coordinated by NATO. “The same center is situated in Sachkhere. It specializes in training mountain armed forces. But this center will be for general training of all kinds of armed forces,” he said.

Maisaya thinks that the center will play a big role in further reforming the Georgian Armed Forces and will enable the country to develop NATO standards on its territory. The opening of the center may encourage Georgia’s membership in NATO, the expert says. At the same time, he believes that the current event won’t negatively influence bilateral Russian-Georgian relations.

Ramaz Sakvarelidze, a political scientist, says that the current event is connected with the fact that Georgia, as well as other post-Soviet countries, would like to find its place in the modern world. However, the expert doesn’t think the opening of the center will significantly influence the European-Atlantic integration of Georgia. He hopes that in the future Moscow will reconsider its skeptical attitude to the center.