Defence Minister Meets with Foreign Partners

Newly appointed Minister of Defence of Georgia Mindia Janelidze has started active meetings with the representatives of the diplomatic corps and international organizations. Janelidze reiterated that the ministry will “continue to intensify” cooperation with the U.S. and NATO. He underscored that there’s no shift in Georgia’s strategic direction and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations remain as strong as ever.

U.S. Ambassador Richard Norland paid a visit to Georgia's new Minister of Defense. At the meeting the sides focused on bilateral cooperation in military-political and military-technical fields and agreed to further enhance the relationship in the security and military spheres.

As the Minister outlined, the U.S is a strategic partner of Georgia and the political course of Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic integration is irreversible. “We intend to continue our intensive cooperation with our U.S. and NATO partners in all formats and platforms. It will become more active and vigorous,” stated Mindia Janelidze.

US Ambassador Richard Norland appreciated the meeting with the new minister and stated that active bilateral cooperation in military and security areas will continue into the future too. “We both agreed that this meeting will be a very good basis to move forward in continuing the very important and very close partnership between the United States and Georgia in the security and defence sphere.”

The Defence Minister hosted the Head of NATO Liaison Office in Georgia, William Lahue. The sides discussed the ongoing cooperation programs with the North Atlantic Alliance and outlined the future plans. Implementation plan of NATO-Georgia Substantial Package was the main topic of discussion as well. “We met to discuss the current situation in MoD and future plans. We had a very frank discussion about the current situation. We are assured that the path of the Euro-Atlantic integration that the MoD has been on for many years already will continue. They will redouble their efforts to continue working on the Substantial Package. The MoD is in good hands with the new minister and we are confident that the reform process will continue,” William Lahue said after the meeting.

Minister of Defence met with Head of European Union Delegation to Georgia Ambassador Janos Herman. The main topic of discussion was a current cooperation between Georgia and EU and future perspectives of relationship. A focus was made on the Agreement signed with EU in March regarding Georgia`s participation in EU crisis management operations. “The European Union signed an agreement with Georgia last year about cooperation in the area of Common Foreign and Security Policy and this framework agreement. The European Union values very much Georgia’s contribution to different European Union missions in particular, in Central Africa and Mali. We will see there will be opportunities also to continue this cooperation in the future. We also shortly mentioned the European Union Monitoring Mission (EUMM) which is here in Georgia, which is one of the biggest operations in this type of the operations. This is an important topic; we think that the EUMM plays an important and useful role in providing better conditions for a peaceful resolution of the crisis", Ambassador Janos Herman said.

During the current week Defence Minister of Georgia Mindia Janelidze also met with the Ambassador of Israel to Georgia Yuval Fuchs and UK Ambassador to Georgia Alexandra Hall Hall to discuss the existing cooperation and future plans.