Georgia will become a NATO member with MAP - alliance communiqué

NATO communiqué on Georgia

The communiqué, released at the end of the first day of the NATO summit in Vilnius, mentions that the alliance “reaffirms the decision taken at the Bucharest Summit in 2008 that Georgia will become a member of the alliance – the Membership Action Plan (MAP) is an integral part of the process.”

The NATO summit is taking place in Vilnius, where the Secretary-General of the Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, presented three steps to bring Ukraine closer to NATO:

— A military assistance program that will help Ukraine transition to NATO training standards.

— The creation of a new Ukraine-NATO Council, where both sides will meet on an equal footing, with the first meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky scheduled for July 12.

—  Ukraine will join NATO when the allies agree and the conditions are met, and its path to membership will shift from a two-step process to a one-step process.

The communiqué also states:

• “We highly appreciate Georgia’s significant contribution to NATO operations, which demonstrates its commitment and ability to contribute to Euro-Atlantic security. We remain fully committed to utilizing the Georgia-NATO Commission and the Annual National Program (ANP) to deepen political dialogue and practical cooperation with Georgia.
• We welcome the progress made in implementing the Comprehensive Package of the NATO-Georgia Joint Training and Evaluation Center, including crisis management, cyber security, military engineering, secure communication, as well as new initiatives in the field of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) defense.”

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• “The EU is disappointed that Georgia does not support sanctions against Russia” – EU Special Representative
• 85% of Georgians support NATO membership – Edison Research

● To advance its Euro-Atlantic aspirations, Georgia must make progress in reforms, including key democratic reforms, and maximize the use of the Annual National Program.

● NATO firmly supports Georgia’s right to determine its own future and course of foreign policy without interference from external sources.

● NATO supports the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Georgia within internationally recognized borders.

● NATO calls on the Russian Federation to withdraw its troops, which it deployed in Georgia without its consent.

● The alliance also calls on Russia to revoke its recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, cease the militarization of these regions, and refrain from attempting to establish borders and forcibly separate them from Georgia.

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At the Vilnius Summit, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda stated that in 2008, Russia “took the initiative” by invading Georgia and starting the war in Ukraine:

“Ukraine will one day join NATO, but we have never made a tangible step forward on this path. And during that time, Russia took the initiative into its own hands by invading Georgia in 2008.

Subsequently, it annexed Crimea, destabilized the situation in the Donbass, and then embarked on a full-scale war in Ukraine. It’s time to change this paradigm. There will be no security and stability in Europe until the future of Ukraine is determined.”