Ex-head of Georgian Army named country’s top envoy to NATO

Former Chief of General Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces (GAF), Major General Vakhtang Kapanadze has been appointed as the country's top military representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). 

Speaking about his new role today Kapanadze stressed his key function would be "ensuring more Georgia in NATO and more NATO in Georgia”. 

I will do my utmost to ensure closer and deeper cooperation between Georgia and NATO.  To achieve this goal I will use all my experience, knowledge and connections,” Kapanadze said this afternoon at a special ceremony marking the handover of power to the new Chief of General Staff of the GAF, Brigadier General Vladimer Chachibaia. 

Kapanadze was appointed as Chief of General Staff of the GAF in November 2013. His three-year term expired yesterday. 

The 56-year-old also served as the Chief of the Georgian Army between 2004 and 2005.

In 2004 he commanded a Georgian peacekeeping battalion in Tskhinvali (South Ossetia) region of Georgia. 

Kapanadze graduated from Tbilisi State University and later enrolled in Georgia's Academy of Internal Affairs. He also trained at at the George C. Marshall European Centre for Security Studies, the US Army War College and at the National Academy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

He is a veteran of the Civil War in Georgia that happened in the early 1990s. For his service he was granted an Order of Honour and an Order of Vakhtang Gorgasali, 3rd Rank.