TBILISI, May 11 (RIA Novosti) - Georgia's parliament has unanimously adopted a statement on the country's integration into NATO, instructing the executive power to meet all obligations in full and on time to join the alliance, the Novosti-Georgia agency said Thursday.
Georgia has been seeking NATO membership since the pro-Western government of Mikheil Saakashvili came to power in the republic in 2004.
The parliament also called on legislators of all NATO member states and the Parliamentary Assembly of the alliance to back Georgia's integration efforts.
The move follows speculation over the future of the Russia-led Commonwealth of Independent States, a loose association of former Soviet republics, after the Georgian foreign minister said Sunday that Georgia and Ukraine were in consultations on leaving the organization.
Niko Orveashvili, director for the center of Georgian reform and development, said Georgia's pullout from the CIS would completely transform Georgia into a country oriented toward Euro-Atlantic integration.
"The ambition of joining NATO and the European Union is not consistent with membership in the CIS," he said.
Arnold Ruutel, President of Estonia, another former Soviet republic that joined NATO and the EU in 2004, said Georgia was ready for NATO membership after negotiations with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.
"Georgia is ready for NATO accession, and we will support you to make this process easier for you," Ruutel said, adding that Georgia needed to hold intensive negotiations with NATO.
Igor Ivanov, the secretary of Russia's Security Council opposed NATO's plans to expand further into the former Soviet space, saying the organization had no political or military grounds for such a move.
"Regarding possible plans for further expansion of NATO, including entering the CIS space, it seems to me there are no reasons for such actions," Igor Ivanov, who was foreign minister from 1998 to 2004, told reporters.
