The Wall Street Journal: “The Woman Seeking a MAP of Georgia”

"On the job for just three weeks, Georgia’s new defence minister was in Brussels this week to kick off a tough mission – persuading the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation to give her embattled country a path to membership at its summit next year,” writes Naftali Bendavid for The Wall Street Journal.

Bendavid puts pen to paper to debate whether Georgia has a chance of being offered NATO membership, while Georgia’s Defence Minister Tinatin Khidasheli sums up why Georgia’s future lies with the Alliance.

Specifically, Georgia wants a "Membership Action Plan,” considered the final stepping stone to joining, at NATO’s July 2016 summit in Warsaw. But some NATO members question whether Georgia has democratized enough, and they worry about extending their mutual-defense guarantee to a country that neighbors Russia and whose territory is partly controlled by it,” writes Bendavid.

Georgia has shown its European aspirations and it should be rewarded for its efforts, believed Khidasheli.

"My plan is to work as hard as possible, to push as hard as possible,” she said. "Everyone who knows me will know that it’s not going to be easy to talk to me and to deal with me. If I am desperate, then that’s it.”

Read the full article here: www.blogs.wsj.com