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Georgia, US negotiating partnership deal: Saakashvili
Tbilisi (AFP) Dec 22, 2008 Georgia and the United States are negotiating a strategic partnership agreement that will bring relations between the two countries to a "new stage," President Mikheil Saakashvili said Monday. "We are in the process of negotiating a US-Georgia strategic partnership agreement. Our relations are moving toward a completely new stage," Saakashvili said in televised remarks. "The United States has never before said that Georgia is its strategic partner," he added. Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Giga Bokeria told AFP that talks on the agreement were under way and that it will cover "the spheres of security, defence, economy and of course democratic development." Georgia's Rustavi-2 television reported that the accord was expected to be signed by the end of the year and that Georgian officials would send a revised version with some amendments to Washington within the next few days. The accord, similar to a strategic agreement Washington signed with Ukraine last week, risks raising tensions with Russia, which earlier this year fought a brief war with Georgia over the breakaway region of South Ossetia. The US and Ukraine signed a strategic accord on Friday that outlined "enhanced cooperation" between the two countries and called for a US diplomatic post in Crimea, a Russian-speaking area where Russia's Black Sea Fleet is based. The US signed similar strategic partnerships with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 1998, when the three countries were seeking to join NATO in the face of fierce opposition from Moscow. The US-Baltic Charter was seen as a key tool in moving the countries towards membership in NATO, which they joined in 2004. NATO ministers agreed at a meeting earlier this month to boost ties with both Georgia and Ukraine, but without granting them the status of official candidates to join the alliance. Russia sent troops into Georgia, a strong US ally, in early August to repel a Georgian military attempt to retake South Ossetia, which had received extensive backing from Moscow for years. Russian forces later withdrew to within South Ossetia and another rebel region, Abkhazia, which Moscow simultaneously recognised as independent states. Share This Article With Planet Earth
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