Atlantic Council: It’s Time to Invite Georgia to Join NATO

The Atlantic Council, one of the most influential American think tanks, says in an article that it is time the NATO door open for  Georgia.

Colby Galliher, an intern with the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, who is the author of the piece, says that NATO should seize the moment and fulfill its decade-old promise made to Georgia.

Hesitation to follow through risks discrediting NATO’s declarations and alienating Georgians who, despite Russia’s best attempts, have maintained their determination to pursue a course of Euro-Atlantic integration.”

Galiher says that leaving Georgia with a promise as protection in an increasingly dangerous neighborhood may only encourage Russia to exploit the West’s hesitation and retard the tenuous progress made in Tbilisi thus far.

Russia to exploit the West’s hesitation and retard the tenuous progress made in Tbilisi thus far. With all talk and no meaningful action toward a MAP, Stoltenberg’s comments may begin to sound to Georgians like a platitudinous refrain, reads the story.

The story reads that Salome Zurabishvili’s young presidency is unabashedly pro-Western, Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze leads a government insistent upon proving its willingness for reform and Euro-Atlantic integration, and, perhaps most significantly, a January poll from the National Democratic Institute found that 78 percent of Georgians, the highest number since 2013, support NATO membership for their country.

See the full story here.