The Express Lane to NATO
// The U.S. will help Georgia join NATO
The U.S. Senate has passed a bill to support NATO membership for Albania, Croatia, Macedonia and Georgia. Washington intends to spend almost $20 million for that purpose, half of which will go to Georgia. The United States has thus chosen to speed up Georgia's integration into NATO. That goal seems to have become a priority in the former Soviet Union for the Americans.
Fast Track
The bill was passed unanimously by the U.S. Congress Friday evening. It was written by a group of senators headed by Senate majority leader Bill Frist. “I believe that eventual NATO membership for Albania, Croatia, Georgia, and Macedonia would be a success for Europe, NATO, and the United States by continuing to extend the zone of peace and security,” said Republican Richard Lugar, one of the authors of the law. The law, known as the “2006 NATO Freedom Consolidation Act,” expresses support for NATO expansion and, in particular, the accession of Albania, Croatia, Macedonia and Georgia. It envisages an allocation of $19.8 million from the U.S. federal budget to be used by those countries for security need. The larger part of that money ($10 million) will go to Georgia.
Georgia's presence among the top four candidates favored by the U.S. for NATO admission looks strange at first glance. Albania, Croatia and Macedonia have been in line for NATO membership for a long time. They have been participating in the NATO Membership Action Plan since 2002. Georgia only recently began to be mentioned as a serious candidate for NATO membership.
The paradox is not hard to explain, however. The U.S. and NATO seem to have decided that the first CIS member state to have NATO membership should be Georgia. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, which runs across Georgia, began operating this year. The West, which was the main sponsor for its construction, needs a firm guarantee of its security. A NATO presence in that region would be that guarantee. That is why Washington and Brussels have put Georgia on the fast track for membership.
This suggestion finds supported in the coordinated character of Washington's and Brussels' actions in relation to Georgia. The law supporting Georgia's candidacy for NATO membership passed last week was introduced into the upper house of the Congress at the end of September by a group of senators headed by Bill Frist. A week and a half earlier, the foreign ministers of the 28 NATO member states decided to proceed to the phase of “intensive dialog” with Georgia to integrate it more closely with the organization.
Robert Simmons, representative of the NATO secretary general in the Southern Caucasus and Central Asia, visited Georgia on October 10. At the height of the Georgian-Russian standoff, NATO decided to make a demonstration of its desire to see Georgia within its ranks. Now the U.S. has done the same thing.
Waiting for the Signal
Not surprisingly, the U.S. Senate's decision was met in Tbilisi with great enthusiasm. Konstantin Gabashvili, chairman of the Georgian parliament's international affairs committee, told Kommersant that “the decision of the upper house of the legislative organ of the U.S. confirms the legality and feasibility of Georgia's attempt to integrate with NATO and that it is prepared to provide us with assistance to overcome various impediments in our way.” State Minister for European Integration Georgy Baramidze said that “with the assistance of our American and European friends, Georgia will receive an unambiguous positive signal from the alliance, with which we already have an intensive dialog, at the next NATO summit.”
The next NATO summit will take place November 28 and 29 in Riga and the strategy for the alliance's expansion will be considered there. In his last state of the nation address to the Georgian parliament, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili stated that Georgia would become a full member of NATO in 2008, and it would receive a “road map,” a specific program of actions leading to NATO membership, at the end of this year.
Those expectations may be overly optimistic, however. At the ceremonial signing of the agreement on Georgia's intensive dialog with the alliance, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer warned that “the NATO doors are open to Georgia, but it has a rather long way to go to pass through them.”
Along that way, Georgia has to meet several conditions. Russian forces must be completely withdrawn from its territory. The Georgian Army must be reformed and brought up to NATO standards. And the main requirement is that it reach peace agreements in the conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Therefore, many Georgian analysts think that Georgia will not receive a “road map” at the Riga summit. But there is no doubt that Georgia will receive a “positive signal” at the summit. That means that Georgia will be able to count on U.S. and NATO support in meeting the NATO admission requirements, including finding settlements in the Abkhazian and South Ossetian conflicts.
Gennady Sysoev; Vladimir Novikov, Tbilisi
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 20, 2006
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