Saakashvili Visits Brussels

President Saakashvili is in Brussels ahead of a NATO summit in early April which is expected to decide on Georgia’s Membership Action Plan (MAP).

“We are close to the beginning of the irreversibility of integration into NATO,” Saakashvili said in a video message recorded in Brussels, which was aired on Georgian TV on Thursday evening, March 13. “We have a real chance to become a candidate for NATO membership. This is a very, very difficult process. Therefore, we need to find as many allies as possible. We need to strengthen and justify our position as much as possible, because this is a daily struggle. These weeks are decisive. We do not know what kind of results we will receive. But we should fight to the end, because future generations will not forgive us if we lose this chance. We are deciding today how well future generations will be protected.”

President Saakashvili said during his visit to Poland in early March that the main goal of Georgian diplomacy was to secure “a broad coalition” within NATO in support of Georgia’s MAP. President Saakashvili is also due to visit the United States where he will hold talks with President Bush on March 19.
 
Daniel Fried, the acting U.S. under secretary of state for political affairs, said on March 11 during hearings at the U.S. Senate foreign affairs committee that Georgia and Ukraine were not ready for NATO membership now, “as they themselves recognize.” He, however, added: “We can help them to help themselves, as they are asking, just as we have helped others, through the Membership Action Plan. MAP is the next step for them, and the timing of that step will be a key issue for the Bucharest [NATO] Summit on [April 2-4].”