The FINANCIAL — According to Civil Georgia, in an interview with the weekly Kviris Palitra Davit Bakradze, the Georgian foreign minister, said, among other things, Georgia’s NATO aspiration and Russia’s WTO membership were discussed during the meeting between the Russian and Georgian Presidents on February 21 in Moscow.
“We want Russia to be the member of the World Trade Organization; because this organization with its rules and regulations will grant us the civilized trade relations with Russia; but it will be hard for us to agree on the membership of Russia in the WTO without resolving some of the key issues. These issues are still on the agenda and experts are working on them,” Bakradze said in the interview published by the Georgian weekly on February 25. “We are talking about the sections of the Georgian border that are in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. According to the agreement there should be [joint Russo-Georgian] border-crossing points there; this is important issue and probably we will agree on this issue too.”
Tamar Kovziridze, deputy economy minister and Georgia’s chief negotiator with Russia over WTO membership, told Civil.Ge on February 23 that the sides had reached “an agreement in principle” on legalization of two border crossing points – one in South Ossetia (Roki Tunnel) and the other in Abkhazia (Gantiadi-Adler) – during the talks in Geneva last week. Terms of forms of legalization, however, she said, would be discussed during the next round of talks in March and April.
Bakradze also said that the issue of Georgia’s NATO integration was also discussed during the
meeting between the presidents. He reiterated that integration into the alliance remains Georgia’s top priority.
“Putin raised this issue [during the meeting],” Bakradze said. “Russia has negative view about NATO enlargement, they can not see the reason why Georgia should enter the NATO, but we have our position we need NATO integration for a lot of reasons; NATO [integration] was and remains one of our priorities. This course remains unchanged and we will actively work on that. We also understand the concern of our Russian colleges and we are ready to respect their security interests but for us security of Georgia is a priority. Naturally we informed President Putin about our position.”
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