Georgia-US maritime centre in focus at Tbilisi seminar

A five-day seminar about the role of a new Georgia-US maritime centre has begun in Tbilisi.

US and Georgian maritime experts are gathering at the Radisson Iveria Blu Hotel in central Tbilisi this week to learn about the new Joint Maritime Operations Centre (JMOC), which was built at the Coast Guard Supsa Radar Station on the Black Sea coast.

The facility was established under the Coast Guard Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Border Police of Georgia and equipped with joint management, control, communications and maritime surveillance systems and corresponding infrastructure.

Officials said the Centre would improve the capability of the national agencies to secure Georgia’s maritime safety.

The main task of the Centre is to prevent, detect and eliminate all kinds of illegal activities, maritime incidents and grave violations of maritime laws in Georgia’s maritime space that pose a threat to the security of Georgia and the wider region.

The five-day seminar was jointly organized by Georgia’s Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Irakli Talakvadze and Deputy Chief of Mission of the United States of America to Georgia Nicholas Berliner, and financed by the US Export Control and Related Border Security (EXBS) Program.

The event will be held in two stages; initially participants will learn about the functions of the JMOC, while in the next few days participants will be divided into inter-agency working groups to develop the JMOC’s Standard Operational Procedures (SOPs) with the support of US experts.

The JMOC was built with financial support of the US Export Control and EXBS and was officially opened in June 2014 on the Black Sea coast. (Agenda.ge)