Lithuania’s Defence Minister: NATO membership was not a problem for Germany when it was divided like Georgia
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Tuesday, September 15
“NATO Membership was not a problem for Germany when the country was divided like Georgia,” Minister of National Defence of Lithuania, Juozas Olekas, stated during his meeting with Georgia’s Defence Minister Tinatin Khidasheli, who is in her 10-day tour in Europe for to attract support for the 2016 Warsaw Summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Georgia is waiting for the Membership Action Plan (MAP) of the alliance form the upcoming summit. It has been stated many times by the anti-NATO movements in Georgia that the organization would not accept Georgia into its rows because of the existing conflict regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
“It is very important Georgia’s partner countries to know exactly what Georgia expects from the Warsaw Summit 2016.
“This is a substantial result that will be an adequate response for Georgia, as NATO’s most credible and special partner,” Khidasheli said.
On his side, Lithuanian Defence Minister declared that Lithuania was, is and will be Georgia’s staunch ally and partner on its path to Euro-Atlantic integration.
“We support Georgia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. Lithuania strongly supports Georgia’s NATO integration in bilateral as well as in multilateral formats and expresses readiness to share experience gained in Euro-Atlantic integration process,” Olekas said.
In the course of her visit Khidasheli also met with the Speaker of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, Loreta Grauziniene.
The Seimas unanimously supports Georgia’s territorial integrity, democratic development and European and Euro-Atlantic integration. The Group for Inter-Parliamentary Relations with Georgia chaired by Zita Zvikiene unites 64 members and is the largest group in the Seimas. The Georgia-Lithuania Friendship Group of the Parliament of Georgia with 25 members is led by Valeri Gelashvili,” Georgia’s Defence Ministry stated.
Khidasheli has already concluded her visits to Poland, Estonia and Latvia.
“The Georgia-Latvia bilateral cooperation we expressed full readiness that Lavia will continue active participation in the joint trainings and ongoing reforms of the Georgian defence sphere.
“This relationship between our countries will deepen. My Latvian counterpart emphasized the mountain trainings in Sachkhere School where the Latvian military also take part. This direction we have outlined before is very important – more NATO soldiers in Georgia and more trainings. This is key topic agenda during all these meetings”, stated Defence Minister of Georgia.
After the meetings she stressed that the countries promised their support to Georgia’s significant results at the summit.
Khidasheli launched her Euro-tour on September 9. She has stressed that all her visits were very successful.
