Great Expectations for NATO Membership as Alliance Officials Visit Georgia

In the wake of the visit to Georgia of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly delegation in April, the NATO military experts arrive in Tbilisi on May 5 to examine current stage of transformation to the standards of the Euro-Atlantic alliance in the Georgian army. On May 14 visit of the NATO Secretary General Lord George Robertson is scheduled.

“Georgia is actively advancing towards NATO. Very soon a special coordination council, headed by the President, will start working on issues of integration into the North Atlantic alliance,” Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Kakha Sikharulidze said at the news briefing on May 2.

Sikharulidze also said that on this background visit of the NATO Secretary General George Robertson, scheduled for May 14, is a very timely event and the Georgian side has big expectations about this visit.

Before that high level visit the military experts of the alliance will evaluate how Georgia carries out reforms in the Armed Forces, necessary for NATO membership.

“Delegations of NATO military experts visit Georgia every year, since 1999 to monitor how their recommendations are being implemented,” Deputy Defense Minister Gela Bezhuashvili told Civil Georgia.

He said that this visit of the NATO experts would be particularly important, because their report might speed up the accession procedures.

Deputy Defense Minister says, that the Georgian side has already responded to the 29-point questionnaire, received from the NATO experts. The questions concern the issues, which the Georgian side should implement.

During their trip on May 5-7 the experts will visit several military unites. The Georgian Defense Ministry will report to the experts regarding the achievements and problems. The NATO experts will be also informed concerning in which particular direction Georgia needs assistance from its western partners. Bezhuashvili says that without the assistance Georgia will not be able to meet NATO standards.

According to Gela Bezhuashvili one of the main points of the recommendations concerns creation of the peacekeeping battalion in Georgia.

“We are receiving assistance from Germany to create the battalion. With joint efforts we already created one company. Its members are currently undergoing training in Germany, after which they will leave to Kosovo with the peacekeeping mission,” Bezhuashvili said.

After the visit the NATO 4-member delegation will report to the heads of the North Atlantic alliance. At the end of May the report will be discussed at the NATO headquarters.

Gela Bezhuashvili hopes that report of the experts regarding implementation of the recommendations will be positive and thus speeds up the process of joining NATO.

“It should happen this way, because we are gradually fulfilling every condition,” Georgian Deputy Defense Minister says.

Georgia has expressed its commitment to become a NATO member at the NATO Prague Summit last November, when President Shevardnadze made an official bid for joining the alliance.

“Many things have happened since then in our favor and probably Georgia will become a NATO member country,” Bezhuashvili said.

However, the delegation of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, which paid a fact-finding visit to Georgia on April 27-30, assumed that Georgia has much to do to join the NATO.

“We highly respect your commitment to integrate in NATO, but there is a very long road ahead. It is not clear today when the next stage of NATO enlargement would start and thus the issue of Georgia’s membership is not on the agenda yet. However, this can change at any moment,” said Markus Meckel, Chairman of the Central and Eastern Europe Subcommittee of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly

On May 24, nearly 500 members will hear the report about Georgia at the Brussels Summit of NATO Parliamentary Assembly. The report will be prepared by the members of the delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly, which visited Georgia on April 27-30. It is expected that the Assembly will adopt special recommendations or resolution concerning Georgia.

By Tea Gularidze, Nino Khutsidze
Civil Georgia