Georgia asks for MAP at Warsaw Summit
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Wednesday, June 3
In the course of her first official meeting with the NATO Secretary General, Georgia’s Foreign Minister Tina Khidasheli asked for Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the Warsaw Summit planned for July 2016.
She also stressed that the topic would be raised at every official meeting with the NATO leadership.
"The Warsaw Summit was the main topic of discussion not only at this particular meeting but it will be the main topic at every meeting I will hold from today until July 9, 2016,” Khidasheli said.
"Our position is known to everyone – we are asking for a new stage of relationship with the alliance,” Khidasheli added.
The sides have also discussed the implementation process of the Georgian-NATO substantial package granted to Georgia through the Wales Summit instead of MAP.
Khidasheli said the location of the Centre had already been chosen by the Georgian side and now the country was waiting for NATO’s approval.
"We are waiting for their answer, after which works will start,” Khidasheli said.
It has also been informed that the NATO Secretary General will come to Georgia this year and will presumably open the NATO-Georgia Joint Training and Evaluation Centre during his trip.
As it was promised by former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen "NATO will support defence capacity-building in Georgia through embedded trainers. And we are pleased that Georgia will host this new NATO-Georgia Training Centre. The centre will help Georgian forces maintain their ability to work with NATO. And it will prepare Georgia and other partners for future contributions to the NATO Response Force.”
The Georgian authorities stress that the country is striving to the NATO that is openly opposed by Russia.
Meanwhile the government also claims that it wants to regulate relations with Russia.
Certain parts of the Georgian political spectrum, head of the non-parliamentary opposition Democratic Movement-United Georgia Nino Burjanadze, assures that the government cheats people when it claims that we can become a member of the NATO, as the alliance does not accept such countries that face these types of territorial problems.
