The alliance will continue to be present in the region to support its partners, says Special Representative of the Secretary General James Appathurai
NATO does not believe the Black Sea is Russian and will continue to be present in the region to support its partners. The statement was made in an interview with NATO Special Representative of the Secretary General for the South Caucasus and Central Asia James Appathurai published on the website of Georgia’s First Channel Public Broadcaster on Thursday.
“We will definitely not accept that the Black Sea is Russian, and we will maintain our representation to support NATO allies and partners. One of the issues we are looking at is deepening cooperation between Georgia and NATO on Georgia’s security in the Black Sea”, – he said.
The NATO representative also added that the alliance is increasing its representation in the Black Sea.
“NATO is even more represented in the Black Sea, we can all see that. We are also talking about our maritime force units that we are withdrawing to the region. Individual NATO members are also doing this, but these actions are coordinated. You see British forces, the French are flying in, the US is bringing in ships on a regular basis. The Russians always don’t like it, but we do it anyway,” he concluded.
Appathurai arrived in Tbilisi the day before. He is scheduled to meet with the republic’s top leadership, including President Salome Zurabishvili. This is his last visit as Special Representative of the NATO Secretary General for the South Caucasus and Central Asia. He will leave the post shortly.
Georgia has been cooperating with NATO since the late 1990s. In November 2002, at the Prague Summit, President Eduard Shevardnadze declared the country’s desire to become a member of the alliance. The next president, Mikheil Saakashvili, reiterated this aspiration. The government that came to power after the victory of the Georgian Dream coalition in October 2012 continued the course towards NATO integration, but the new authorities called the “gradual normalisation of relations with Russia not to the detriment of Georgia’s territorial integrity” the most important task of the country’s foreign policy.