NATO, Georgia open joint military training centre near Tbilisi
Moscow (dpa) -- NATO and Georgia on Thursday opened a joint military training centre outside the Georgian capital Tbilisi, in an effort to improve the country's forces as it aspires to NATO membership.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg hailed the country as a "strong and reliable contributor to our shared security" at the inauguration ceremony alongside Georgia's top leadership, according to a NATO statement.
Georgian troops will train alongside NATO allies at the facility at the Krtsanisi military base in the southern Caucasus mountains, the statement said.
Georgia, which joined NATO's Partnership for Peace in 1994, considerably ramped up efforts to join the bloc after losing a five-day war with Russia over two breakaway territories in 2008.
NATO has conducted several large military exercises in Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova this year, all former members of the Soviet Union.
But NATO is wary about giving Georgia full membership because the bloc would then be obligated to defend Georgia in case of renewed hostilities with Russia.
The new training facility in Georgia "will help make Georgia and Georgian forces even more capable and more modern, and it will also strengthen cooperation between NATO and partner nations," Stoltenberg said.
"So there is more Georgia in NATO and more NATO in Georgia," he added.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker confirm that the Free trade zone between the European Union and Ukraine will begin functioning on January 1, 2016.
Russia does not comply with the Minsk agreements, said European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.
“Both sides must fully fulfill the Minsk agreements … This applies mainly to Russia, because it doesn’t seem that the Russian side fulfills its commitments to stability in Ukraine,” he said.
Here's an MH17 update from our news desk:
The Dutch Safety Board has announced that the final report into the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine last year will be published on October 13.
All 298 people on board the plane, travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, were killed in the crash last year.
Two thirds of the victims were Dutch, and the country is leading the judicial and air safety investigations into the crash.
In a preliminary report last year, the Dutch Safety Board blamed the crash on "high energy objects" striking the aircraft.
Western governments have said they believe it was downed by a ground-to-air missile fired in error by Moscow-backed separatists.
Russia contests that claim, and has variously attributed the crash to an unidentified Ukrainian fighter aircraft and a Ukrainian-launched anti-aircraft missile.
Last month, Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution to establish an international tribunal to find and try those responsible for the Boeing 777's downing.
(Reuters, AFP)