Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Zaza Kandelaki and U.S. Charge d’Affaires Patricia Moller signed on February 26 a memorandum, which would enable to continue security training of the Georgian officials.
This assistance will be provided to the Georgian Government through the U.S. State Department’s Anti-terrorism Assistance Program, also known as ATA.
The ATA program has trained 528 Georgian Government officials since 1994, at a cost of over $4.5 million. The Memorandum of Intent will allow this assistance to continue.
These ATA courses include Airport Security Management, Terrorist Crime Scene Investigation, Petroleum Facilities Security, and Hostage Negotiations and Incident Management, and involve instructors from U.S. Customs, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, and many others.
This week, a team of U.S. State Department, Transportation Security Administration, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms officials held meetings with Georgian law enforcement and security officials with the goal of improving, and possibly expanding, the ATA program to Georgia.