Foreign Minister on NATO, Russia’s WTO Membership Terms
Georgia’s NATO aspiration and Russia’s WTO membership were discussed at a meeting between the Russian and Georgian presidents on February 21 in Moscow, Georgian Foreign Minister Davit Bakradze said in an interview with the weekly Kviris Palitra.
“We want Russia to be a member of the World Trade Organization because this organization with its rules and regulations will allow for civilized trade relations with Russia. It will, however, be hard for us to agree to Russian membership while key issues remain unresolved. These issues are still on the agenda and experts are working on them,” Bakradze said in the interview published on February 25. “We are talking about the sections of the Georgian border that are in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. We have tentatively agreed to have [joint Russo-Georgian] border-crossing points there; this is an important issue and we will probably finalise an agree on this issue too.”
Tamar Kovziridze, deputy economy minister and Georgia’s chief negotiator with Russia over WTO membership, told Civil.Ge on February 23 that the sides had reached “an agreement in principle” on legalization of two border crossing points – one in South Ossetia (Roki Tunnel) and the other in Abkhazia (Gantiadi-Adler) – during the talks in Geneva last week. The details still need to be worked out, she said, at the next round of talks in March and April.
Bakradze also said that Georgia’s NATO integration was also discussed during the meeting between the presidents. He reiterated that integration into the alliance remains Georgia’s top priority.
“Putin raised this issue [during the meeting],” Bakradze said. “Russia holds a negative view about NATO enlargement. They can not see why Georgia should join NATO, but we have our position as we need NATO integration for a lot of reasons; NATO [integration] was and remains one of our priorities. This course remains unchanged and we will actively work towards it. We also understand the concerns of our Russian colleagues and we are ready to respect their security interests, but for us, the security of Georgia is the priority. Naturally, we informed President Putin about our position.”
This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)
