BERLIN, March 15 (UPI) -- The former Soviet republic of Georgia is taking strides toward NATO membership, and European Union officials hope the country can help guarantee security in the South Caucasus and serve as a reliable energy transit country to Western Europe.
Ever since U.S.-educated Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili came to power in the South Caucasus republic in 2004 after the so-called Rose Revolution, Tbilisi has pushed to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union and reduce its dependence on Russia.
On Tuesday, in what observers have called a landmark decision for the country's post-Cold War political history, Georgia's Parliament almost unanimously approved the government's NATO accession plan.
While EU enlargement is put on hold, the country's NATO plans are becoming more concrete: Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli, currently on a working visit in Berlin, Wednesday spoke with German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung about possible Georgian troop deployment to Afghanistan, where the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force is battling the Taliban.
Germany, which currently holds the rotating six-month EU presidency, has in the past had Georgian soldiers support German troops on joint missions in northern Afghanistan. It supports Georgia's NATO bid also because regional and energy security (Georgia has little resources but is an important transit country) are high on the agenda of the German EU presidency.
The United States has also shown its support; Washington for years has trained Georgian soldiers, and earlier this month, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to make Georgia (among other countries) eligible for U.S. aid aimed at preparing the country's NATO accession, by backing the NATO Freedom Consolidation Act.
Georgia, which has embarked on an ambitious reform course, says it justly deserves the place in NATO that observers say will be given to them in 2009.
While acknowledging that Georgia's road to a full democracy wasn't over yet, Nogaideli, the Georgian prime minister, said: "We have established a functional and predictable state ... We believe that as an independent nation we have both the right and the responsibility to pursue our own foreign policy based on our national interests."
Nogaideli spoke Thursday in Berlin at talks organized by the German Council on Foreign Relations, a political think tank based in the German capital.
Eberhard Sandschneider, a high-ranking official at the think tank, said while talking about security in the Caucasus, "there is always a third guest at the table, and that's Russia."
Georgia's westward push has been viewed very critically in Moscow, where officials feel threatened by what they see as an eastward expansion of NATO and especially the United States.
Recent U.S. plans to place an anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic have angered Moscow. While some have stipulated that Georgia could also join the system, Nogaideli on Thursday said it was "not on the agenda," and refused to further fuel speculations. "This is a matter between the United States and Poland, and the United States and the Czech Republic," he said.
Besides the missile system, Moscow and Tbilisi have rowed heavily over frozen regional conflicts, namely the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Both regions have proclaimed independence; in Abkhazia, Russia helped broker a cease fire agreement that ended a bloody independence war in the early 1990s.
Abkhazia and South Ossetia have not been recognized as sovereign states by the international community, yet their bid for independence is backed by the Russian government, which said that if the United Nations grants full sovereignty to the Serbian province of Kosovo, it should treat Abkhazia and South Ossetia the same way.
Russia has granted citizenship to many residents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and Tbilisi regularly accuses Moscow of meddling in its internal affairs. Moscow believes Tbilisi is preparing for military operations -- allegations Nogaideli on Thursday brushed aside as "fantastic stories."
Georgian-Russian relations are currently at historic lows after Moscow imposed trade bans on Georgian agricultural products, and a spy scandal -- in which Georgia arrested four Russian officers on charges of espionage and Moscow in turn stopped giving Georgians visas and expelled hundreds of Georgians from Russia.
Europe's interest in the region has surged, also because of energy security concerns.
Earlier this week, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier traveled to Georgia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, in what observers say was a bid to set up a long energy corridor which could bring Eastern Caspian resources to Western Europe via the new Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.
The pipeline was officially inaugurated on July 13, 2006, and is expected to deliver one million barrels of oil per day by 2008. Running from the Black Sea resort of Baku, Azerbaijan, over Tbilisi, Georgia, to the Turkish port city of Ceyhan, the pipeline is seen by many EU officials as an alternative energy source, as opposed to oil and gas imports from Russia.
Aware of his newly gained strategic attractiveness, Nogaideli said Thursday that with the oil pipeline and the South Caucasus gas pipeline, Georgia had a "tremendous potential" to help diversify Europe's energy imports from the Caspian region.
"And we are eager to play our part," he said.
