President Saakashvili said that his recent trip to the U.S. during which he met with President Obama was “a strategic breakthrough” for Georgia as it resulted into prospect of free trade treaty with the U.S. and Washington’s assistance to increase Georgia’s self-defense capabilities.

“The most important about this visit was that for us it was actually a strategic breakthrough in respect of the U.S. direction and in general in respect of strengthening [Georgia’s] international positions,” Saakashvili said while meeting lawmakers from his ruling National Movement party on February 13.

“Discussions have started over free trade treaty [with the U.S.] and in next few weeks a team will arrive [from the U.S.] to Tbilisi to create a high level framework for inter-governmental discussions for preparing this treaty,” Saakashvili said, adding that a prospect for free trade treaty would stimulate additional foreign investments in Georgia, “taking in view the fact that no one either in our region or in Europe has no such treaty with the world’s largest economy.”

“And the second issue – for the first time in history the U.S. announced about assisting Georgia in its self-defense,” Saakashvili said again without going into details of what specifically this assistance directed towards increasing Georgia’s “self-defense capabilities” would imply. He said that this process of assistance to Georgia’s “self-defense” would continue for years.

“These two issues are really strategic breakthrough for Georgia,” Saakashvili added.