By Georgy Kalatozishvili, exclusively to VK
A meeting of the NATO-Georgia commission was held recently in Brussels. The commission was formed right after the ‘5-day war’ of 2008. Georgian Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration Georgy Baramudze and deputy FM Tornike Gorgadze entered the commission from the Georgian side. NATO Deputy Secretary Alexander Vershbow an special representative of the Alliance to the Caucasus and Central Asia James Appaturai became the commission’s members from the NATO side. According to our source in the Georgian Foreign Ministry, the latest meeting recognized the acting yearly program of cooperation between NATO and Georgia as a successful project. This program replaced the Membership Acting Plan for Georgia (the country failed to obtain this ‘road map’ for joining the Alliance during Bucharest Summit in 2008)
Nevertheless, James Appaturai reassured his Georgian partners by saying that the Bucharest summit has decided the issue of Georgia’s future membership in the alliance positively, so the Georgians don’t have to worry about their national security. However, Georgia's western partners refused to name any actual date of giving the ‘road map’ to Georgia once again. They only promised to make it clear that Georgia will be a NATO member on the upcoming Chicago summit.
At the same time as the commission session, the negotiations between Georgian President Saakashvili and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen took place. The Secretary once again thanked Georgia for its help in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, he hinted that the future of Georgia-NATO cooperation depends on the democratic character of the upcoming parliamentary elections.
It seems that the Georgian leader wasn’t expecting any cardinal decisions from NATO in this regard: “We are anticipating the Chicago summit and we are optimistic about its outcome. We want to show that our state has achieved a lot as far as democratic reforms are concerned”, he said. According to him, the Georgian government plans to invite as many international observers to the October parliamentary elections as possible. At the same time he pointed out that Russia is going to conduct war games ‘Caucasus-2012’ this autumn to his NATO colleagues, and, according to Saakashvili, these games are aimed at pressuring Georgian voters.
Tbilisi doesn’t expect to get the long-expected MAP in Chicago, but the attention granted to the country in Brussels is very important for it.
