On September 19, the U.S. Department of State released its annual Country Reports on Terrorism, assessing the 2017 global counterterrorism landscape for the U.S. Congress.
The document refers to Georgia as “a longstanding member of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS,” which “continued its strong engagement with the United States across a range of counterterrorism-related issues.” It also highlights that Georgia “participated in numerous bilateral exercises and remained a solid U.S. security partner.”
“Overall, the Georgian government is generally capable of detecting, deterring, and responding to terrorist incidents,” the report says, adding that the State Security Service (SSS), which has the lead in handling terrorism-related incidents, “is generally well equipped and well trained.”
The report also states that “Georgia continued to enhance its counterterrorism legislation in 2017,” and introduced laws “with a view to reform and increase management oversight of covert investigative operations and the use of electronic surveillance.”
The country is “actively engaged” on counterterrorism issues at international, regional, and bilateral levels, including with NATO, European Union, Europol, and a number of European countries.
According to the report, the U.S.-Georgia agreement on bilateral intelligence sharing, signed in May 2017, “will strengthen counterterrorism cooperation and enhance the Georgian military’s interoperability with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member states.”
The U.S. State Department Terrorism Report 2016 is available here.
This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)