Improve relations with neighbours, NATO urges Georgia

Dec 3, 2009, 16:04 GMT

Brussels - Georgia should improve its ties with its neighbours to boost its own security, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told Georgia's foreign minister on Thursday.

Georgia fought a brief but bitter war with its neighbour Russia in August 2008, losing control over two breakaway regions in the process and stoking tensions across Europe.

'We all understand that your country has suffered a lot during the last years,'  Rasmussen told Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze at a meeting with NATO foreign ministers in Brussels.

'Many human wounds have to heal, but reforms and modernization and a determination to improve neighbourly relations offer the best prospects of a better future for the Georgian people,' he said.

Georgia aspires to join NATO, and NATO leaders at a summit in Bucharest in April 2008 promised that the former-Soviet state would join the alliance at an unspecified future date. That pledge outraged Russia, which saw it as an attempt at US-led encirclement.

Russia's August 2008 invasion of Georgia, in retaliation for Georgia's attack on the breakaway zones of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, then infuriated Western opinion and led NATO to freeze ties with Moscow temporarily.

The alliance also responded to the crisis by setting up a new committee to help Georgia reform its military and political life.

'The commission has already proven its relevance and value by steering a very valuable programme of reforms,' Rasmussen said.

The Dane stressed NATO's support for Georgia's territorial integrity - a key point after Russia declared the two breakaway regions independent and posted its own soldiers there.

NATO is 'committed to Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity, but we all know the security climate in the region remains fragile. This puts a particular responsibility on the shoulders of all relevant parties, Georgia included,' Rasmussen stressed.

He thanked Vashadze for Georgia's pledge to send up to 1,000 combat troops to the hotspot of southern Afghanistan, where NATO is mired in the fight against Taliban-linked insurgents.

'That is a powerful signal that Georgia is willing to do what it takes to become a security provider,' Rasmussen said.

Vashadze thanked NATO foreign ministers for their support.

NATO foreign ministers are set to meet their Russian counterpart on Friday.