NATO visits Georgia
19 September 2008
On September 15th the NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and the Permanent Representatives of the North Atlantic Council arrived in Tbilisi for a two-day visit to Georgia. During the visit an exchange of views took place on Georgia's progress in conducting reforms in the framework of its partnership with NATO and on the current situation in the country, following the conflict with Russia over the break-away region of South Ossetia last August.
Supporting Georgia
The NATO Secretary General had a bilateral meeting with President Saakashvili, after which the NATO delegation met with high-level Georgian officials as well as with members of Parliament and representatives of civil society. During the meetings Georgia's progress in democratic reforms and Euro-Atlantic aspirations were discussed, as the NATO officials expressed the Alliance’s strong support for Georgia in the mentioned issues. Accordingly, on September 15th Georgia and NATO signed a framework agreement on setting up a NATO-Georgia Commission, which had been proposed in the wake of the Georgian-Russian conflict in early August. Previously, at their Summit in Bucharest in April, NATO leaders agreed that Georgia would become a member of the Alliance, and launched a period of intensive engagement with Georgia to address questions still outstanding regarding Georgia’s Membership Action Plan (MAP) application. Decisions on when Georgia will move to the MAP stage and eventually to membership will be based on Georgia’s performance in implementing key reforms laid out in the Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP). The application to join MAP will be reviewed by Allied foreign ministers in December 2008.
The Opposition
In a meeting with the Georgian opposition in the context of the NATO visit, leader of the Labour Party Shalva Natelashvili, emphasized what he called “political repression” in Georgia. He also called on Western powers to revise their decision on the recognition of Kosovo. Giorgi Targamadze, the leader of parliamentary minority and chairman of the Christian-Democratic Party, said the level of NATO engagement has been increased and he expects its influence on the authorities in respect of further democratic reforms to be very serious. Kakha Kukava of the Conservative Party stated that he had raised four issues: an independent inquiry into the August events; lifting of restrictions on public and private broadcast media; reorganization of the Interior Ministry and security structures, and adoption of a new election code. Davit Usupashvili, leader of the Republican Party, said that he spoke at the meeting mainly about his party’s vision on how to hold early parliamentary elections.
The Russo-Georgian Conflict
The North Atlantic Council also met with regional office representatives of the European Union, the OSCE and the United Nations and talked about the efforts of the international community in order to assist Georgia in the aftermath of the conflict in August.
In relation to the said conflict, the NATO visit was strongly criticized by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Ministry deemed the visit “untimely” considering the current situation and “not corresponding to the interests of stabilization in the region.” The Ministry stated that the decisions made during the visit “confirmed that ‘Cold War’ reflexes of the friend and foe kind have been triggered in NATO.” Furthermore, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer was criticised for traveling to the town of Gori on September 16th, where he visited civilian and military sites damaged in Russian air strikes. The Ministry considers the action anti-Russian: “It is a pity that [Schaffer’s] schedule did not include a trip to Tskhinvali […] There he could have seen the tragic consequences of the nighttime shelling of civilians by the Georgian army.”
Sources: NATO, Civil.ge Daily News Online
