NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and North Atlantic Council (NAC) diplomats visited Georgia on November 9-10. The visit incited Tbilisi’s hopes that the next Alliance summit will bring Georgia closer to NATO. Although Rasmussen appraised the NATO-Georgia partnership as “very special” and “solid,” he could not specify when Georgia may expect membership in the organization.

NAC, the supreme political decision-making body of NATO, convened in Tbilisi in September 2008, soon after the end of the August war. Demonstrating the solidarity of the Euro-Atlantic community towards Georgia, NAC launched a NATO-Georgia Commission, the key partnership mechanism between the country and the alliance.

The Commission observes and reviews the implementation of reforms outlined in Georgia’s Annual National Program (ANP). “Our annual assessment clearly demonstrates that Georgia has carried through a number of reforms that are required for the future membership of NATO,” Rasmussen said in Tbilisi. Nevertheless, he also emphasized that Georgia’s membership perspective will depend on its performance in the 2012 parliamentary and 2013 presidential elections.

At a broader level, Rasmussen recapitulated the decisions taken at the 2008 and 2010 NATO summits in Bucharest and Lisbon on an open-door policy regarding Georgia and a non-recognition policy toward South Ossetia and Abkhazia. He explicitly reiterated that no third party can veto an enlargement of the Alliance and that NATO continues its effort to convince Russia to reverse its recognition of the breakaway regions.

The Secretary General praised Georgia’s “priceless” contributions to the operation in Afghanistan which, he stated, also improved the interoperability between Georgian and NATO armed forces. Rasmussen, however, clarified that there is no direct link between Georgian input to the operation and its potential membership in NATO. 

“Georgia’s path to join NATO was not an easy one, but no one would ever be able to derail Georgia from this road,” Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili said at a meeting with the NATO ambassadors. However, Saakashvili acknowledged that efforts should be made to induce “further changes” and meet membership requirements. The president still expressed hopes that the next NATO Summit scheduled for May 2012 in Chicago, “will appreciate the progress made by Georgia in reforms.”

Whereas Georgia expects to move forward on its path of NATO integration, Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev recently made a notable statement on the causes of the August 2008 war. Medvedev said the war was a signal to Russia’s partners, including NATO, to think carefully about geopolitical stability prior to making decisions on enlargement, meaning that the Kremlin will never passively accept NATO expansion to its southern borders.

Georgia’s perspective to become a NATO member is thus dependent on a set of challenging domestic and international factors. Domestic factors which may potentially influence Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic integration include both military and political aspects. Tbilisi plans to send an additional battalion to Afghanistan next year, which would make it the largest non-NATO contributor to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and reinforce its standing as a NATO partner from a military viewpoint. Georgia’s fulfillment of political preconditions, however, seems to be more ambiguous. The judiciary system and media are not sufficiently independent in Georgia, which impedes the establishment of strong democratic institutions. Thereto, it is not yet clear what President Saakashvili plans to do after his second term in office ends. According to some European analysts, while Georgia scores much better in reform than some of its neighbors, it still runs the risk of becoming stuck in a hybrid system between an authoritarian state and a democracy and between a command economy and a free market.

This may be the reason for Rasmussen’s suggestion to the Georgian leadership to “keep building the pillars of a free and democratic state … In particular, keep the momentum in electoral reform. The elections … will be a litmus test of your democracy and we are looking forward to seeing the necessary reforms introduced.”  

While a higher degree of democracy certainly matters, the Kremlin’s resistance to NATO enlargement, along with the reluctance of several NATO members to irritate Moscow by promoting Georgian NATO membership, remains serious predicaments for Georgia internationally. The interconnections between these domestic and international factors further complicate Georgia’s situation and may well be increasingly felt in the near future.

One important question is how efficiently Tbilisi will be able to resist the Kremlin’s probable attempts to destabilize the domestic situation in Georgia prior to the elections. Such developments could reduce the incumbent government’s ability to hold fairly democratic elections, convincing the alliance that Georgia deserves to reach a qualitatively new stage in its partnership with NATO. A final question is to what extent the tentative configuration of political forces will shift Georgia’s foreign policy priorities regarding NATO after the electoral cycle over the next two years.

Atambayev says no foreign troops at Manas after 2014 20 February Kyrgyzstan President Almazbek Atambaev has announced at a meeting with visiting U.S. State Department officials that that "no foreign troops" should remain at Kyrgyzstan's Manas airport after 2014. The United States military pays Kyrgyzstan to use facilities at Manas, near Bishkek, as a transit center for U.S. operations in Afghanistan. Atambaev is quoted as making the statement while meeting with a U.S. delegation led by Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Susan M. Elliott on February 20. Last week, Atambaev vowed to demand overdue fees from Moscow for Russian military assets based on Kyrgyz soil. The Kyrgyz president is scheduled to soon have talks with the Russian leadership in Moscow. Kyrgyzstan hosts a Russian long-distance communication center and a torpedo-testing base, among other facilities. (RFE/RL)

Afghan kuran ‘burning’: US apologizes 21 February US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has apologised to the Afghan people for an incident in which copies of the Koran were reportedly burned. Mr Panetta said the US military respected the religious practices of the Afghan people "without exception". The Nato commander in Afghanistan, US Gen John R Allen, has already announced an inquiry into the incident. Reports suggest the US had confiscated materials that they suspected Taliban prisoners were using to send messages. News of the incident has triggered angry protests outside the US base at Bagram, north of Kabul. One person was wounded and five were detained when Nato forces used rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. "This morning Gen Allen notified me of the deeply unfortunate incident involving the inappropriate treatment of religious materials, including the Koran, at Bagram Airbase," a statement from Mr Panetta said. "He and I apologise to the Afghan people and disapprove of such conduct in the strongest possible terms. "These actions do not represent the views of the United States military. We honour and respect the religious practices of the Afghan people, without exception." Mr Panetta said he supported Gen Allen's decision to launch an inquiry. Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the reports that the Koran had been burnt. The Taliban said the incident would hurt the feelings "of one billion Muslims around the world". Reports said the Korans had been found in piles of rubbish that Nato had transported in a lorry on Monday night to a pit on the base where waste is burned. Afghans working at the pit are believed to have seen the religious books and stopped the disposal process. (BBC) Five Kazakhs Sentenced On Terror Charges 21 February Five men in Kazakhstan have been sentenced on terrorism charges to jail terms varying from five to 13 years in the northwestern city of Aqtobe. The men were found guilty on February 21 of creating an illegal armed group and of organizing and conducting a bombing in Aqtobe's suburbs in July 2011 which killed two suspects and one policeman. In a separate incident in May 2011, a resident in Aqtobe carried out what was described as the first ever suicide bombing in Kazakhstan, blowing himself up at the entrance to the National Security Committee's local branch and injuring three men. Investigators said the bomber was a member of an extremist Islamic group. (RFE/RL) Kazakh former nuclear company executive arrested in Canada 21 February The former vice president of Kazakhstan’s KazAtomProm national nuclear company has been arrested in Canada. The Kazakh National Security Committee announced on February 21 that Rustem Tursynbaev, 49, was arrested on February 10 for violating Canada's immigration laws. Tursynbaev is wanted in Kazakhstan for allegedly creating and leading a criminal group, embezzlement, tax evasion, misappropriating the property of others, and money laundering. Tursynbaev’s ex-boss, KazAtomProm’s former President Mukhtar Dzhakishev, was found guilty in March 2011 of corruption and sentenced to 14 years in jail. A new criminal case was launched against him later last year. Dzhakishev insists he is not guilty. His supporters and relatives say both of the cases against him are politically motivated. (RFE/RL) Six dead in Afghanistan Koran burning protests 22 January At least six people have been killed and dozens injured in Afghanistan after protests spread over the burning of copies of the Koran at a US airbase. One person was killed in Kabul, one in the eastern city of Jalalabad and at least four in Parwan province. US officials apologised on Tuesday after Korans were "inadvertently" put in an incinerator at Bagram airbase. The ISAF spokesman Brigadier General Carsten Jacobson says the incident was an unfortunate mistake. (BBC) Region on alert, arrests in Azerbaijan 22 January Authorities in Azerbaijan say they've arrested several Iranian intelligence and Hezbollah activists who were allegedly planning attacks on foreigners. The Azeri national security agency announced the arrests Tuesday, while the state-owned television reported those arrested had been gathering intelligence and acquiring explosives and weapons, Haaretz.com reported. The arrests follow a similar action last month, in which three men were detained for allegedly planning to attack two Israelis employed by a Jewish school in the Azeri capital of Baku. Tensions between Iran and the West arising from Tehran's nuclear program appear to have spread to the south Caucasus, with the arrests and an attempted bomb attack on an Israeli embassy vehicle last week in Tbilisi, capital of Georgia, which borders the oil-rich Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan also borders Iran. Israel blamed Iran and Hezbollah for the Tbilisi attack and for a similar bombing in New Delhi and blasts in Bangkok. Iran and Hezbollah denied the charges. A report in the Tehran Times, quoting Fars News Agency, accused Azerbaijan of harboring a Mossad agent accused of being involved in the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist. A BBC report said the strategic importance of the Caucasus grows with the development of energy resources in Azerbaijan and in the Caspian Sea that are carried through pipelines to markets in the West. Georgia political analyst Alexander Rondeli told the BBC the region has become like Switzerland prior to World War II as a center fr spying: "Everyone is using the South Caucasus for this hidden war. No doubt about it." The report said while Georgia and Azerbaijan, formerly part of the Soviet Union, have ties to Iran, both also are allies of the West, supporting NATO efforts in Afghanistan, and any major conflict in Iran is bound to spill over into the region. (UPI)