Turkish FM Çavuşoğlu: Georgia Should Become NATO Member

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, who is participating in the World Economic Forum’s 50th annual meeting in Davos on January 21-24, said his country believes that NATO needs enlargement and called for Georgia’s membership in the Alliance. 

Speaking at a panel discussion The Future of NATO on January 23, Çavuşoğlu said: “I don’t understand why we have not invited Georgia or we haven’t activated the [membership] action plan for Georgia.”

He then noted that while Turkey is being “criticized for having relatively better relations with Russia as neighbor,” its “western friends are not inviting or not agreeing to invite Georgia with the pretext that we should not provoke Russia.”

“But Georgia needs us, and we need an ally like Georgia,” Çavuşoğlu said, adding that Turkey believes that NATO needs enlargement and that “Georgia should also become a NATO member.” 

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