Polish Embassy to become contact point embassy between NATO and Georgia
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Thursday, February 14
On February 12, 2019, the inauguration of the Embassy of Poland in the role of NATO Contact Point Embassy in Georgia took place at the Embassy’s premises.
NATO Contact Point Embassies have been operating in NATO partner states since early 1990s. They serve as a channel for spreading information about NATO role and policies, and also support implementation of agreements that are in place between NATO and its partner states.
Georgia has been striving to join NATO for years, with the alliance repeatedly reaffirming its support for Tbilisi's aspirations. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in January that NATO and Georgia agreed to continue working together on Tbilisi's preparations for joining the bloc.
HE Mariusz Maszkiewicz, Ambassador of Poland to Georgia has stated that the project will contribute to the high social support to Georgia’s integration into NATO: "We are proud that the Polish Embassy in Tbilisi was given such a prestigious and responsible role. Poland has always been a big and loyal friend of Georgia, so we are happy to have another opportunity to support Georgia's admission to NATO.” He specified that the embassy will function as NATO Contact Point Embassy in Georgia until 2020.
Other speakers who greeted the participants of the event were Ms. Rosaria Puglisi – Head of the NATO Liaison Office and Prof. Przemyslaw Zurawski vel Grajewski - Adviser in the Political Cabinet of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland.
Following the review of NATO’s partnerships policy in April 2011, the network of CPEs has also been extended to other partners across the globe.
Georgian Defense Minister Levan Izoria met with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and his deputy Rose Gottemoeller in Brussels on Wednesday during the Defense Ministerial.
Izoria said that Georgia's integration into European and Euro-Atlantic structures and the growing support of the Georgian population for this process have been discussed.
“The NATO-Georgia relations, the role of Georgia in the Black Sea region and international security, the defense transformation process and the NATO-Georgia 2019 exercise scheduled for March were also discussed at the meeting,” Georgian Defence Ministry reported.
Since the early 1990s, NATO has developed a network of Contact Point Embassies (CPE) to support the alliance’s partnership and public diplomacy activities in countries participating in the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), Partnership for Peace (PfP), Mediterranean Dialogue (MD) and Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI).
