US President’s inauguration not attended by foreign leaders
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Tuesday, January 17
Georgia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has stated that the US President-elect’s inauguration on January 20 will not be attended by foreign delegations or leaders.
Only diplomatic missions, including the representatives of Georgian Embassy, will attend the ceremony.
"According to the agenda of the White House administration, no foreign delegations will attend the inauguration. The ceremony will be attended only by representatives of the diplomatic missions accredited in the United States,” the Georgian Ministry stated.
Prior to the inauguration, Trump commented on NATO, the membership of which Georgia is striving towards.
Trump said NATO was “obsolete” because it had not defended against terror attacks, but that the military alliance was still very important to him.
“I took such heat when I said NATO was obsolete," Trump told The Times.
"It’s obsolete because it wasn’t taking care of terror. I took a lot of heat for two days. And then they started saying Trump is right."
Trump added that many NATO members were not paying their fair share for US protection.
“A lot of these countries aren’t paying what they’re supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States," Trump said. "With that being said, NATO is very important to me. There’s five countries that are paying what they’re supposed to. Five. It’s not much."
In the interview, Trump also said Germany's Angela Merkel made "a catastrophic mistake" by admitting more than one million migrants, BBC reported.
And he threatened German car makers with high import tariffs.
A statement by Trump that NATO is "obsolete" has caused "worry" in the alliance, Germany's foreign minister has said.
