Ten NATO Allies Call for Georgia MAP

Eastern NATO states and Canada have called on the rest of the allies to invite Georgia and Ukraine to join the Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the Bucharest summit on April 2-4, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on March 20.

Letter sent to NATO Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, as well as to other member states is signed by Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, the Czech Republic and Canada.

It was reported in mid-March by the Financial Times that Germany, France, Greece, Italy, Norway and Spain were resisting extending NATO MAP to Georgia and Ukraine and Britain believed the two countries should get MAP status but not at the Bucharest summit.

President Bush told his Georgian counterpart, Mikheil Saakashvili, during the meeting in Washington on March 19, that he would press for Georgia’s MAP at the Bucharest summit.