Georgia has a reason to bother: Kakha Gogolashvili
“Armenia and Georgia are overcoming hard times,” Kakha Gogolashvili, Director of EU Studies at the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, Georgian political scientist, told 168.am, reflecting to the agenda of Armenian Defense Minister Vigen Sargsyan’s visit to Georgia.
Defense Minister of Armenia was on official visit to Georgia on December 21-22, who had meetings with Georgia’s top officials, in particular, Georgian Defense Minister and PM. By the end of negotiations the plan of cooperation of the Ministries for 2017 was signed. Gogolashvili stated that judging from the content of the signed document, it was a necessary, planned visit, as such documents are signed every year. According to him the field of Armenian-Georgian military cooperation won’t undergo considerable changes on account of the policy pursued by the two countries in that field.
“I consider, nothing has changed here, the sides should attempt to maintain former volumes of cooperation, although both of them are deepening military cooperation with different centers, in this case Armenia with Russia, and Georgia with NATO. In fact, our countries are overcoming really hard times, attempting to maintain friendly ties under these conditions, to which they don’t see an alternative, however, with time that issue is becoming more complicated and difficult to overcome on account of the fact, that similarities are being eliminated. Under these conditions sincerity and experience of the past help Armenia and Georgia,” Gogolashvili said.
The latter believes that during these meetings backstage discussions have been launched, which referred to regional developments. “Security of the South Caucasus is fragile, one of the reasons is unsettled NK conflict, which has definitely been discussed during the ministerial meeting. Syrian developments aren’t at least in our region, however, they are taking place near us, and can’t bypass Armenia and Georgia.
Finally, after the April war serious armaments have appeared in Armenia, then Armenia-Russia joint troops have been developed, functions of which are unknown to all the sides, although one of Russian top officials touched upon the troops, observing them as a factor to restrain or control NATO member countries. Here, naturally, Georgia has a reason to bother, as it has the purpose to become a NATO member. I believe, negotiations have been launched around this issue. The Georgian side introduced current way of membership to NATO, programs, which are implemented by NATO-Georgian Joint Training and Evaluation Centre (JTEC), and in which projects Armenian forces may be involved,” Kakha Gogolashvili said.
By Araks Martirosyan
