MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator Viktor Litovkin) The biggest puzzle of the NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer's Moscow visit was, of course, the issue of Georgia.
Many politicians, experts and journalists wondered what they would hear from NATO's chief about inviting into the North Atlantic alliance the first CIS country after its leadership announced the intention to join it "as soon as possible", and the American Congress allocated $10 million for the purpose. Especially since representatives of 26 alliance members have recently decided to launch an "intensive dialogue" with Tbilisi on the matter. It is therefore logical to ask: what next steps will Brussels and the Georgian capital take to move closer together?
But the secretary-general carefully avoided this subject at his meetings with journalists, particularly after seeing Russian President Vladimir Putin. He merely remarked that Georgia's further steps to integrate into NATO would depend on Tbilisi's commitment to peaceful resolution of internal and external conflicts.
What is more, ahead of his arrival in Moscow Scheffer told one news agency that an intensified dialogue had been going on for some time with Georgia to help its leadership to understand what strict obligations are placed on potential NATO members and what rigorous standards they must meet. In addition, concerning the intensified dialogue, the secretary-general explained that Georgia was not to join NATO any moment now. Although Tbilisi is clearly eager to do so, further steps toward achieving this aim will depend on how much Georgia believes in NATO's fundamental reform and basic principles, such as peaceful internal and external conflict resolution.
What the secretary-general left unsaid was explained by General Raymond Henault, chairman of the alliance's military committee, who arrived in Moscow ahead of Jaap de Hoop's visit to the Russian capital.
An intensified dialogue does not guarantee NATO membership, but allows NATO to discuss with any state a later political decision on accepting it into NATO, he said, speaking live on Ekho Moskvy radio. The general said such negotiations usually took a long time.
Another high-ranking NATO official, special representative of the secretary-general Robert Simmons, did not offer any guarantees that Tbilisi had a real chance of becoming a member of the North Atlantic alliance.
Although Georgia expressed a desire to join both NATO and the EU, he said, it is not even in the early stages of the process to accede to these organizations.
About the same was said in a telephone conversation with this RIA Novosti military commentator by one of Scheffer's aides. He asked me not to mention his name, and said that NATO was not expecting Georgia to join in the next few years, although refusing its right to claim membership would be wrong.
My source in Brussels said this contradicted the basic postulate of the organization, which is open to whoever wants to join it. The action requires going through certain procedures, and these are not within the scope of every state.
The mixed feelings of high-ranking NATO officials about Georgia's entry are understandable. On the one hand, one cannot forbid any state, especially if it is in the partnership program with NATO, to want to join the North Atlantic alliance. On the other, it is impossible to accept every applicant. Even today, when 26 countries are NATO members, top-level decision-making in Brussels is difficult. NATO closely sticks to the consensus principle, which is not always achievable. Such was the case with the decision on the alliance's participation in the U.S. operation against Saddam's Iraq.
Despite Washington's strong pressure, the position taken by Paris and Berlin prevented NATO as an organization from supporting its main ally. Separate countries had to take part in that operation on an individual basis.
Even now the alliance's members differ substantially on the acceptance of new countries. NATO's coming summit in Riga, it was said several months ago, would invite Albania, Croatia and Macedonia into the alliance. But the event will be postponed. Until another summit, Scheffer said.
Georgia's entry into NATO is also doubted, especially by France. France is categorically opposed to it. Its explanations are the unpredictable nature of the present Georgian leadership, unsolved territorial problems in relations with Sukhumi and Tskhinvali, and aggressive statements by some Tbilisi politicians.
NATO does not need another war, or a sharp cooling of relations with such Georgia's neighbor as "Great Russia", as the alliance's secretary-general called our country in his dialogue with President Putin. But at the same time Brussels cannot but respond to political pressure from Washington, its Department of State, Senate and Congress, which never tire of voicing their absolute support for Georgia's territorial integrity and the need for the country to join NATO in order to protect the West's interests in the Caucasus. Which, parenthetically, can be read as protecting oil pipelines stretching from Central Asia and the Caspian to the Black and Mediterranean seas, bypassing Russia. It also means stepping up pressure on the irreconcilable Iran.
The alliance's leadership has therefore to manoeuver not to quarrel with Moscow or Washington. And that is a difficult matter. Hence Brussels' tactics: to say neither yes nor no, and to quote the alliance's strict standards and obligations a joining country assumes. And at the same time to recommend to Moscow to lift the sanctions imposed on Georgia and to make efforts to normalize relations, which concerns both sides.
To which Russia's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Sergei Ivanov responded with his typical bluntness: "We have no problems with Georgia, nor do we pursue any sanctions against it ... Problems exist in Georgia's relations with its former autonomies, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and not between Georgia and Russia." In short, as journalists present at Scheffer's meeting with Ivanov saw it, Moscow made it clear to Brussels: if you want to be friends with Tbilisi and deepen relations with it, you can go ahead but tell the Georgian leadership to at least drop its warlike rhetoric and stop proudly displaying a chip on its shoulder.
This piece of advice seems to have been the main result of the NATO secretary-general's Kremlin talks.
