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NATO chief meets with Georgian leader during Caucasus tour

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  • NATO chief meets with Georgian leader during Caucasus tour

    Agence France Presse
    Nov. 4, 2004

    NATO chief meets with Georgian leader during Caucasus tour

    TBILISI (AFP) Nov 04, 2004

    NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer Thursday met with Georgian President
    Mikhail Saakashvili, the youthful leader of the strategic former Soviet
    republic in the Caucasus who has vowed to join the alliance within four
    years.
    De Hoop Scheffer's visit is part of a Caucasus tour and comes days
    after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization decided to extend an
    Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) to the country.

    "NATO values highly the efforts by Georgia's people and leadership to
    intergrate the the country into the alliance," de Hoop Scheffer said at
    a briefing following the meeting.

    "I am a realist and an optimist," he said. "As a realist, I dont' want
    to talk about (specific) dates. I know that Georgia has a long way to
    go to join

    "As an optimist, I am certain that all efforts by Georgia's leadership
    will be aimed at doing everything to join the alliance," he said.

    Saakashvili, for his part, said he was certain that "Georgia can join
    NATO much sooner than many think."

    "It's possible this will happen while I am still in office," said the
    36-year-old who was elected Georgia's president for five years in
    January 2004.

    Saakashvili, a US-educated lawyer, has repeatedly vowed to turn
    westward his small country that lies in what has traditionally been
    considered Russia's sphere of influence, the Caucasus.

    The adoption of the IPAP shows that "Georgia has entered the final
    stretch of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization," Irakly
    Aladashvili, a military analyst in Tbilisi, told AFP.

    "We have actively conducted reforms according to NATO standards,"
    Defense Minister Georgy Baramidze said Wednesday.

    Georgia, a nation of less than five million people nestled in the
    Caucausus mountains, treads a delicate line with its NATO ambitions --
    Moscow has been the traditional power broker in the region and is wary
    of pro-Western Saakashvili.

    Washington has been vying with Russia for influence over Georgia that
    hosts a vital oil pipeline due to take Caspian Sea oil to Western
    markets.

    NATO spread up to the borders of Russia earlier this year when it
    admitted the former Soviet republics in the Baltics and the Kremlin
    frowns upon the alliance reaching its southern border as well.

    Saakashvili has repeatedly sought to reassure Kremlin concerns,
    insisting that Georgia will not play host to foreign bases even in the
    event it does join NATO.

    "NATO integration does not mean that we will have to host foreign
    military bases on Georgian territory," he said last week.

    "We are surprised the sensitive reaction in Russia to Georgia's aim to
    be closer to the European Union and NATO," Nino Burjanadze, speaker of
    parliament, said while on a visit to Moscow last week.

    "Our aim is membership in the EU and NATO, but not to the detriment of
    Russia," she said.

    The question of military bases has a special resonance with Tbilisi, as
    Russia still has two bases on Georgian territory from Soviet times.

    Although it has agreed to vacate the installations, Moscow has dragged
    its feet, saying the logistics of withdrawal could take up to 10 years.

    "The question of Georgian integration into NATO is all the more
    important in light of relations between Russia and Georgia," said
    Irakly Aladashvili, an analyst.

    "First of all, Georgian adhesion to... NATO means the inevitability
    that Russia will have to withdraw its bases," he explained.

    De Hoop Scheffer was due to fly out to Azerbaijan late Thursday, where
    he was to hold talks with President Ilham Aliyev, before traveling on
    to Armenia on Friday afternoon.
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