Georgia, US to sign 'strategic' accord

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(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-12-26 07:52

Georgia and the United States will sign a strategic partnership treaty on January 4, the Georgian foreign ministry said yesterday, in a move that risks provoking Russian wrath against Tbilisi again.

"Georgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Grigol Vashadze and the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will sign a strategic partnership treaty on January 4 in Washington," foreign ministry spokeswoman Khatuna Iosava said.

The accord risks raising tensions with Russia, which earlier this year fought a brief war with Georgia over the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Post-war tensions between Russia and Georgia are already running high, a fact underlined on Wednesday when Russian President Dmitry Medvedev launched an extraordinary personal attack on his Georgian counterpart Mikheil Saakashvili.

"We suspected that our Georgian colleague had problems in his brains but we did not realize that it would be as serious as that," Medvedev said in a television interview.

Saakashvili has hailed the US-Georgia treaty as a "historic" move that will allow the two countries' relations to progress towards a new stage.

"The United States has never before said that Georgia is its strategic partner," he said on December 22.

Georgian opposition politicians and analysts agreed that the accord was a positive step but warned not to get carried away by its importance.

"No doubt it is a step forward in strengthening Georgia's security. But Saakashvili is exaggerating its importance," the leader of the Georgian Republican Party, Levan Berdzenishvili, said. "This accord is not a substitute for NATO membership, which is the only way to ensure Georgia's security."

An analyst with the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs, Tornike Sharashenidze, said: "The accord in question is not about creating military guarantees for Georgia's security. It's mostly of moral force."

AFP

(China Daily 12/26/2008 page11)