Georgia’s Foreign Minister emphasizes country’s progress

Georgia is not far away from gaining NATO membership, Georgia’s Foreign Minister Maia Panjikidze emphasized.

"Georgia has great enthusiasm and is going very quietly and calmly down the road ahead towards the North Atlantic Threat Organization (NATO) unlike the previous government,” Panjikidze said today.

Her comments were in response to a statement by leader of Georgian opposition party United National Movement (UNM) Giga Bokeria.

Yesterday Bokeria, Georgia’s former Security Council Secretary, said the Government’s reaction to a statement made by US President Barak Obama, where he said NATO had no intention of expanding to include Ukraine or Georgia, was "hysterical”.

In response to Bokeria, Foreign Minister Panjikidze said: "This is exactly the right way in which we are moving and it will inevitably lead Georgia to NATO and the EU.”

"Nobody has ever said that we are not standing in the way of NATO; it just says that the September NATO Summit will not be an expanded Summit. That is another thing,” the Minister said.

Immediately after President Obama’s comments, Georgia’s State Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Alexi Petriashvili believed there was nothing to be disappointed about in Obama’s remarks and said he was sure the upcoming NATO Summit would be positive for Georgia.