Tbilisi. Georgia may be granted NATO Membership Action Plan
(MAP) in September, a final decision will depend on the issue whether the Crimea will enter
the composition of Russia according to
results of the referendum, the newspaper Kommersant writes in the article
"Georgia is Prepared a Plan with
the View to the Crimea", with the reference to sources in NATO
Headquarters and the U.S. Department of State.
According to the newspaper, Georgia may be
granted MAP at the NATO Summit in Great Britain, scheduled for September, if
the Crimea is included into RF.
"Even representatives of states, that
urged not long ago not to accelerate this issue, at present say that Tbilisi's
application for granting a candidate status must be satisfied", a source
in NATO Headquarters stated to the newspaper. The newspaper's source in the
U.S. Department of State confirmed that granting Georgia MAP by the alliance
would depend on the Crimea issue.
Last year, NATO Secretary General, Anders
Fogh Rasmussen, stated that in 2015 Georgia might join NATO Response Force. In
January of the current year, Georgian Primed Minister, Irakli Garibashvili,
stated that the country hoped to be granted MAP at 2014 NATO Summit.
According to the Kommersant, Georgia
considers NATO enlargement and approaching its borders to be unacceptable. Not
long ago Foreign Minister of RF Sergei Lavrov stated that the Alliance's
enlargement was "continuation of
old logic of the cold war epoch". "This is not only preservation of
separation lines, we have committed to take way, this is shifting of these
separation lines to the East that contradicts commitments, that were voiced at
the highest level regarding indivisibility and security", he said.