Will Georgia be allowed to join NATO? When desires do not match opportunities

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili has said at the Qatar Economic Forum that after resolving territorial disputes with Russia, Tbilisi intends to join the North Atlantic Alliance.

"We understand that membership in NATO depends not only on our desires. We are not so naive and understand that Georgia has territorial problems that we must resolve before joining the alliance," Garibashvili admitted.

However, the prime minister did not specify how Georgia plans to resolve the territorial dispute with Russia. In fact, he did not say anything new about the country's position on joining NATO. As for Tbilisi's desire to join the North Atlantic Bloc, this has been said since 2005, and a year later the Georgian parliament voted for the country's integration into the alliance. Georgia even held a referendum simultaneously with the presidential elections, the results of which testified that 77 per cent of Georgian voters approve of joining NATO. This was an unpleasant surprise for Moscow and, as subsequent events have shown, one of the main reasons for the rapid cooling of Russian-Georgian relations.

Russia has always been jealous of any rapprochement of the former Union countries with the West, so Georgia's open desire to join NATO could not but have a negative impact on relations between Moscow and Tbilisi. As you know, a complete rupture of Russian-Georgian diplomatic relations occurred already in 2008, when the Russian Federation recognised the "independence" of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Georgia (and most of the world community) considers part of its territory. Since that time, the alliance has periodically fueled the hopes of Georgians for the country's full membership in NATO, but without specifics and direct promises. Such statements are voiced mainly by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, while constantly stipulating that it is not yet possible to name the dates. The uncertainty shown by NATO significantly slows down the procedure for Georgia's accession to the alliance and thereby weakens its position as a potential candidate.

However, it is clear to everyone that one of the main reasons hindering the process of Georgia's accession is related to its territorial problems, in which Russia is involved. At the same time, NATO assures Georgia of its importance as an important strategic partner and ally but uses every opportunity primarily in its own interests. For example, since 2011, exercises of the Georgian Armed Forces and NATO countries' Agile Spirit have been held annually on the territory of Georgia. And in 2014, Georgia agreed to host a Joint NATO-Georgia Training and Evaluation Centre (JTEC) in Krtsanisi, a suburb of Tbilisi. Last year, military exercises were held in the Black Sea near Batumi with the participation of five ships of the second permanent Naval Unit of NATO (SNMG 2) and coast guard boats of the Georgian Interior Ministry and NATO warships regularly enter the ports of Georgia.

Of course, such a frank demonstration by Georgia of its desire for close cooperation with the military bloc seriously irritates Russia. Formally, there are no diplomatic relations between Moscow and Tbilisi, but Russia will never allow Georgia to finally end up on the southern flank of NATO, which was confirmed by the events in Ukraine. Russia has clearly shown that it is capable of using military force against those countries of the former Soviet Union that are looking towards the West and are hatching plans for rapprochement with NATO.

But, as we see, the West is limited to rhetorical statements regarding same Georgia. In this April, while visiting Tbilisi, Deputy Assistant Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Bloc James Appathurai, in an interview with the Georgian TV company Formula, said that NATO's open-door policy towards Georgia remained unchanged. And he even hinted that Georgia would be mentioned at the upcoming NATO summit in Madrid in June. It is quite possible that Georgia will be mentioned in the impressive list of issues put forward for discussion at the NATO summit, but most likely this will happen in a declarative manner. So a breakthrough on the issue of the country's membership in NATO is still unlikely.

Georgia itself is also pessimistic about the country's NATO prospects. Among the representatives of the Georgian political establishment, there are those who not only exclude Georgia's membership in the alliance in the near or even medium-term but are also sceptical about the possibility of the country's accession to the EU. By the way, recently there has been some activity around this topic, which also indicates that Georgia is confidently looking towards the West and has practically decided on a further integration course. But how the future fate of the country will develop will largely depend on the consequences of the war in Ukraine. After Russia's invasion of Ukraine in Georgia itself, the number of supporters of rapprochement with Russia has sharply decreased, but the number of supporters of closer ties with Western countries has increased significantly. And here's what's curious - the Georgian government has shown an unstable policy in support of anti-Russian sanctions. Thus, after the Georgian government made a decision on the country's non-alignment to sanctions against Russia, relations between Tbilisi and Kyiv became noticeably more complicated. In April, President Salome Zurabishvili said in an interview with CNN that official Tbilisi would join all international financial sanctions imposed against Russia because of the special operation in Ukraine, but two days after it, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said that Georgia's accession to sanctions against Russia contradicts the national interests of the country. As a result, Tbilisi limited itself only to humanitarian support for Ukraine.

So, apparently, with regard to Georgia, it is premature to completely rule out the possibility of working out compromise solutions to controversial issues with Russia. Who knows, perhaps Georgia has already developed a plan to resolve disputed issues with Russia. However, whether the two countries will be able to reach a consensus on NATO is a big question...