NATO NAC Meets Georgian MPs

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and ambassadors from NATO-member states, who are visiting Tbilisi, met on Thursday morning Speaker Davit Usupashvili and some other members of Georgia’s outgoing parliament.

“The North Atlantic Council’s [NAC] visit to Georgia sends a very important message to the world,” Stoltenberg said in his opening remarks.
 
“As Georgia approaches national elections next month [October 8], I want to take this opportunity to commend all members of Parliament for your active engagement in strengthening Georgia’s democratic institutions,” the NATO Secretary General said.

“Georgia has made impressive progress on fundamental electoral reforms. You have also strengthened the rule of law. And you are pursuing key reforms in the defence and security sectors,” he said.

Parliament Speaker Davit Usupashvili said in his opening remarks at the meeting that an actual membership is the only thing that is absent, otherwise Georgia and NATO are “working together, discussing together global security issues and Georgia has an opportunity to be actually a full-fledged participant of NATO activities.”

“I want to reassure you that Georgia will do everything in order to be contributor to peace, prosperity and security,” Usupashvili said.

“Your visit one month before the parliamentary elections is very important for majority of Georgia’s political parties for whom question is not about ‘yes or no’ on NATO membership, but ‘which path is shorter and more efficient for NATO membership’,” Usupashvili said.

Usupashvili, who leads Republican Party which was GDDG ruling party’s coalition partner in the government up until late July, made headlines this week after announcing as part of election campaign that advocating for U.S. military base in Georgia would be his party’s one of the priorities.

“Before NATO membership becomes a reality, Georgia should ensure deployment of the U.S. military base in Georgia,” he said on September 6 when presenting his party’s campaign priorities at Rustavi 2 TV’s talk show. “Situation emerging not only in our immediate neighborhood, but also beyond, makes us to take extraordinary decisions. When we are told about non-bloc status for Georgia [advocated in its election campaign by Nino Burjanadze’s Democratic Movement party] and about legalization of Russian military bases in Georgia [reference to calls by one of the openly pro-Russian party], our response should be to pursue policy of securing deployment of U.S. or of any other NATO member state’s military base in Georgia.”

Asked about Usupashvili’s calls for U.S. military base in Georgia, U.S. ambassador in Tbilisi, Ian Kelly, said on September 7: “I think here we have to look at exactly what this proposal means.”

“I think now the United States already has a big presence here, multilaterally in the sense of the leading role that we play in the Joint Training and Evaluation Center under NATO, but also with Resolute Support where we have at any one time about 150 Marines here out in that same area – Krtsanisi area – where the Training and Evaluation Center is,” Ambassador Kelly said, referring to training of Georgian troops for deployment in NATO-led Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan.

“And then, of course, we’re going to be starting up another bilateral program, the Georgia Readiness Program, which we are talking with the Georgian Ministry of Defense about in terms of what the contours will be of this program; we’re in very early stages.  But as I say, it all depends on what the details of this proposal would be and it’s an interesting proposal we’ll have to look at,” the U.S. ambassador added.