The First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, David Dondua, made a number of interesting announcements during a meeting with one of the opposition parliamentary factions. Despite the low rank of this official, his statements distracted from the overall polyphony of Georgian leaders on the prospects of joining NATO. Dondua directly and unambiguously stated that Georgia will not receive the Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the Warsaw Summit in the summer of next year. But Foreign Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili, and especially the Defense Minister Tina Khidasheli, said more than once that the chance of the country receiving the MAP is very high. Khidasheli almost brought the NATO ultimatum. The defense minister of the small Caucasian country said at a recent meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg that "we have only the MAP question on the table of our negotiations with NATO and we do not have any other suggestions for our colleagues."
However, according to the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, the rhetoric of Georgian leaders abroad differs from the theses which they voiced in the country. "We know that our chance of getting the MAP is petty, but we still constantly raise this issue during the dialogue with partners to get at least something, if not the MAP," the diplomat said. At the same time, according to him, the Georgian authorities don't want to give priority to the question of the action plan as they don't want to create "false expectations and hopes", since when Tbilisi will receive the MAP, "it will cause frustration among the population, and the Russian propaganda will take advantage of it for sure."
The NATO summit in Warsaw will be held before the parliamentary elections in Georgia, scheduled for the autumn of next year. "if NATO doesn't provide us any effective instrument of integration instead of the MAP, it will cause significant damage to the pro-Western forces," Dondua said. He confirmed that the results of the summit are crucial for 'the pro-Western forces' by saying it, because the next frustration can lead to victory or serious success of the pro-Russian forces in the parliamentary elections, including Nino Burjanadze's opposition party 'Democratic Movement-United Georgia'. By the way, she claimed long before David Dondua that Georgia has no chance of getting the MAP, and especially of joining NATO, because the country has no control of over than 20% of its territory and 61% of the coastal strip (in Abkhazia), that is, it does not control those borders, where it is recognized by the West and the majority of UN member states.
Now Dondua, who was the ambassador of Georgia to NATO for several years, says "I can say that there is an almost 100% probability that we won't be able to take an important step on the path to NATO at the Warsaw Summit, that is, we won't get the MAP!" Finally, even tragic notes appeared in the statements of the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs: "How will be this be perceived in Georgia if we don't get the MAP? The Russian propaganda's business is to prove the Georgian people that we are not wanted in the West. Therefore, we are trying to explain to our western colleagues that they just have to show readiness to fulfill their commitments," David Dondua noted, referring to the phrase in the communiqué of the Bucharest summit, 'Georgia will become a NATO member'.
In this regard, the two images are recalled, one of which was created by the great European civilization, and the second – by the great Asian culture – Sisyphus endlessly rolls a huge boulder up a steep hill, and the donkey, in front of whose nose Nasreddin Hodja has hung a carrot.
