Senior U.S. Diplomat: No Plans for Bases in Georgia

The United States “has no plans” to station military bases in Georgia, William Burns, the U.S. under secretary of state for political affairs, said in an interview with Interfax news agency on February 13.

Burns, who visits Moscow, said that he was not aware of details of reports regarding Moscow’s plans to station bases in breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but said that if reports on Russia’s plans “were true, they would be inconsistent with the agreements into which Russia entered last September with the French President.”

“Most of the international community disagrees with Russia on the status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but we believe it’s very important to have a peaceful resolution of differences,” he said in the interview, text of which was posted on the Department of State’s website.

Asked whether the U.S. administration intended to push ahead with the entry of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, the U.S. senior diplomat responded: “Our view is that sovereign nations have the right to make their own decisions and choose their own alliances. That means that Ukraine and Georgia have the right to membership in NATO.”

“But that depends first upon all the members of NATO agreeing to that,” he continued. “It means that the people of those two countries or any other potential members must support membership; and it means that any country which wishes to [become] a member of NATO has to meet the requirements of NATO. Today, Ukraine and Georgia are not ready for membership in NATO. Membership is a complicated and time-consuming process which deserves to be handled carefully. In the meantime, the United States is committed to close ties between NATO and those two countries through the bilateral commissions which have recently been created.”

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