Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Georgia

NATO Ministers Back Closer Ties With Georgia

Georgian soldiers during training excercises led by U.S. instructors in March (epa)

September 22, 2006 -- NATO foreign ministers have agreed to offer closer ties to Georgia in a move seen as another step toward possible Georgian membership of the alliance.

TEXT SIZE - +

September 22, 2006

The decision to support an "intensified dialogue" with Tbilisi was taken at a September 21 meeting in New York.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Georgia will have to accept the "responsibilities" associated with the intensified dialogue. In particular, he cited the importance of a peaceful outcome to Georgia's conflicts with the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has denounced NATO's decision, saying that Georgia's membership of NATO "would seriously affect the political, military, and economic interests of Russia and would have a negative impact on the fragile situation in the Caucasus."

(AFP, Reuters)

RFE/RL Caucasus Report

SUBSCRIBE For weekly news and in-depth analysis on Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Russia's North Caucasus by e-mail, subscribe to "RFE/RL Caucasus Report."

President Serzh Sarkisian has promised fair elections

Prospect Of Vote-Rigging Overshadows Upcoming Armenian Parliamentary Election

The Armenian parliamentary elections due in May will not simply be a struggle between rival political parties with diverging priorities and platforms. More

Alla Dzhioyeva attends a protest by her supporters in Tskhinvali on January 28.

South Ossetian Opposition Leader Hospitalized After Raid

Alla Dzhioyeva, the opposition candidate whose victory in a runoff ballot in November for de facto president of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia was swiftly annulled by the republic's Supreme Court, was taken to a hospital after a raid by some 200 masked security personnel on her headquarters in Tskhinvali. More

Former KGB head Leonid Tibilov is a presidential hopeful.

Repeat South Ossetian Election Campaign Gathers Momentum

The run-up to the repeat election on March 24 for a new de facto president of Georgia's breakaway Republic of South Ossetia bears an uncanny resemblance to last November's election campaign. More