The White House’s policy of ‘non-contact relations’ with President Saakashvili was interrupted by the meeting of Obama and his Georgian counterpart in Lisbon. However, the very policy itself was relative: unlike his predecessor, Mr Saakashvili has met the US Secretary of State several times. Eduard Shevarnadze, an absolute partisan of the USA, was easy for the US government to deal with, but after the so-called ‘Rose Revolution' the USA was placed in the uncomfortable position of dealing with direct choices and decisions by its Georgian ally.
The Lisbon meeting played a very positive role for Saakashvili’s image within his own country, despite the fact that the US President wanted only to make his Georgian counterpart approve of the ‘reload’ in NATO-Russian relations. And that’s not the only subject needing Georgian approval: the issue of Russia’s membership of the WTO also presents a certain problem.
It is probable that President Obama personally tried to convince Saakashvili to recognize the legitimacy of check-points on the Abkhazian and Ossetian boarders – a subject that Hillary Clinton failed to come to any final agreement on. However, it turns out that, apart from words of approval, Saakashvili did not give his consent to any real actions.The issue of Russia joining the WTO was also discussed during the meeting; however, the Georgian side didn’t make any concessions. According to Tbilisi, Russia does not meet the WTO requirements, as it trades with Abkhazia and South Ossetia (recognized as parts of Georgia by the international community) without coordinating this with the Georgian authorities. This reason seems serious enough to hamper Russia’s joining the WTO, even though most of the WTO's members are interested in Russia entering the organization.
Georgian officials perceive Washington’s unwillingness to spoil its relations with Georgia for the sake of improving relations with Russia as their main political gain at the Lisbon NATO Summit. Moreover, they seem to be expecting the very myth of rapprochement between Moscow and NATO to fade away in the face of the necessity of real steps towards each other, like the sector anti-missile shield, or Caspian seabed pipeline projects.The Georgian president merely accepts the ‘rules of the game’ by approving the warming of relations between NATO and Moscow, but his policy remains the same. As for Georgia’s possible membership of NATO, Georgian politicians are not feeding false hopes of quick success: "The process itself creates the necessary guarantees for us", the Minister for Euro-integration said, even before the events of the ‘five-day war’.
Georgy Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi, exclusively to VK
