NATO envoy: Georgia has achieved success and will become NATO member

Georgia’s desire to strengthen its relationship with the West has been reaffirmed at an international conference attended by global NATO representatives, Georgian officials and community representatives.

NATO Week opened in Tbilisi today, as did the international conference "Way to NATO: Share Experience of Central and Eastern European Countries”.

Georgia’s State Minister for European and Euro Atlantic Integration Alexi Petriashvili said the overwhelming majority of people in Georgia wanted the country to become a member of the European Union and NATO.

This morning Petriashvili and NATO Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic opened the event.

In her opening speech, Grabar-Kitarovic said NATO was ready to protect the integrity of its partners and if Georgia satisfied the requirements for NATO membership, the door was open and the Alliance would expand to include Georgia.

[NATO membership] should be granted on the country's achievements and its merits, based on an ongoing process and should not be linked to the state of any other aspiring countries.

Do not concentrate on the Member Action Plan (MAP) as a signal of imminent success. As you know, MAP is a very important process but I want to stress the fact that Georgia achieved success and it will become a member of NATO, Grabar -Kitarovic said.

State Minister Petriashvili said NATO Week was an important event for Georgia to show and remind its society, neighbours and the wider NATO community that Georgia aspired to join North Atlantic structures and emphasized the necessity to speed up Georgia’s integration process.

He also highlighted that Georgia’s NATO membership depended on the fairness of the upcoming local Governmental elections, due to be held on June 15.

"We want to emphasize that this process is not completed,” Petriashvili said.

Because of the recent situation in Ukraine, we believe it is important to speed up [Georgia’s integration] process.

Georgia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Davit Zalkaniani stressed the importance of today’s conference.

An important week has started and we will have a chance to discuss things with NATO’s partner countries in Eastern and Central Europe [and they can] share their experience on how they were integrated into NATO and compare them to Georgia’s current situation, Zalnakiani said.

Georgia is facing significant challenges before the NATO Summit in Wales. [NATO members] will be interested to see how we deal with these challenges and we need them to share our views about this issue. We are expecting very interesting discussions regarding this subject, the Deputy Minister added.

High ranking representatives of NATO member states, as well as executive and legislative branches of various international Governments, the diplomatic corps accredited in Georgia, non-Governmental organisation representatives and media attended today’s conference.

Tomorrow, a presentation outlining Georgia’s participation in peacekeeping missions will be held.

Furthermore, Parliament’s National Library will host an exhibition named "History of Georgian troops”.

NATO Week will continue until April 16.