Georgia will have fully professional army from 2017

Reforms are being implemented to continue to develop Georgia’s military to international standards and the country will have a fully professional armed forces from the beginning of 2017, said Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili at the ninth Georgia Defence and Security Conference in Batumi on Saturday.

Within his speech at the two-day conference in Batumi, Adjara region, Garibashvili said many aspects of the Georgian Armed Forces would be reviewed and changes would be made to align the military sector with international standards.

"The main objective of the Georgian Government is to develop forces that are modern and capable of defence under democratic control and we make lots of efforts to do this,” Garibashvili said.

One change would be to change the older Soviet system of position compensation to a rank-based salary system.

He discussed the reforms made in Georgia’s defensive sphere and emphasized the progress achieved by Georgia in respect of increasing civil control on armed forces, raising transparency, accountability and honesty.

"During the recent years Georgia’s armed forces have reached the highest level of public confidence while the number of the volunteers who are signing the contract of the second time, has increased seriously, compared to previous years,” PM Garibashvili stated.

At the end of his speech, the Prime Minister said he was proud of the Georgian Armed Forces, particularly the fact they were currently at the "highest stage of compatibility with NATO”.

Garibashvili said Georgia had contributed greatly to the ISAF mission in Afghanistan and 1,600 Georgian soldiers would remain there until the ISAF mission ended. He also mentioned about 150 Georgian soldiers had recently been dispatched to serve in an EU-led mission in the Central African Republic and added: "Georgia is going to be a strong partner of NATO”.

He ended his speech by saying: "I would like to state that Georgia has proved that it faithfully serves for strengthening international stability and security and is really capable to make a contribution to anchoring common Euro Atlantic security.”