Parliament official: stepping up partner support for Georgia’s defence, deterrence “crucially important”

Irakli Beraia, the Chair of the Defence and Security Committee in the Georgian Parliament, on Monday said it was “crucially important” for partners of Georgia to “step up” their support for the country to strengthen its defence and deterrence capabilities and resilience against “full spectrum of hybrid threats”.

In his speech at the Inter-Parliamentary Conference on the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the Common Security and Defence Policy in Madrid, Beraia noted it was “equally important” that Georgia remained a “priority” on the European agenda on the backdrop of the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Along with pressuring Russia to withdraw from Georgia, it is crucially important to step-up support to Georgia in further strengthening defence and deterrence, resilience against the full spectrum of hybrid threats and increase the EU-NATO engagement in the region, given the latter’s strategic importance for European Security”, the Parliament official said. 

Beraia stressed granting the country the “well- and long-deserved” EU membership candidate status would be a “significant step” towards strengthening European security.

The Georgian official also expressed his “strong” support to Ukraine and its “brave people” defending their homeland from Russian aggressors.  

This war has made the already dire environment in the [Russian-] occupied regions of Georgia increasingly alarming - through persistent breach of EU-mediated cease-fire agreement by Russia, intensified military drills, humanitarian crisis, de-facto annexation steps and hybrid warfare”, he continued.  

Beraia added the Georgian Government was pursuing a peaceful conflict resolution policy, ambitious democratic and security reforms, as well as EU and NATO integration agenda, and was “ready” to further contribute to European and global security. 

He also highlighted the Government was “fully complying” with the international sanctions imposed on Russia, and said the efforts were “confirmed by credible verification mechanisms”.