On 12-13 September Madeleine Moon, the President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly visited Georgia. She met with Georgian Parliament Speaker Archil Talakvadze, Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia, President Salome Zurabishvili, Defence Minister Irakli Garibashvili, members of the ruling party and the opposition. Moon travelled to the village of Khurvaleti, Gori Municipality, to see the current situation near the Administrative Boundary Line (ABL) in person.

During her meeting with Talakvadze, Moon stated that cooperation with Georgia is of high importance for the assembly she chairs. She vowed to broadly speak about Georgia’s progress towards NATO during the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in October. Moon also highlighted that Russian propaganda is a real threat and not only in Georgia, but also in many other countries and that “each citizen should do their job against it”. She stated that NATO’s position towards Georgia “has always been very clear”, supporting the country’s territorial integrity and supporting the country’s intention to reintegrate its occupied territories. Talakvadze said that “Georgia is strategically ready to join NATO”, noting that Georgia will remain committed to the common values with the alliance.

At the meeting with Gakharia, Moon spoke of NATO-Georgia cooperation and the progress that Georgia has made on its path to NATO integration. Gakharia said the NATO PA delegation’s visit to Georgia is yet another demonstration of the NATO support to the country. They also spoke of the grave humanitarian and security situation in the two Russian occupied regions of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali (South Ossetia).

In Khurvaleti, Moon was informed about the recent developments in the villages of Gugutiantkari and Chorchana (Caucasus Watch reported). She commented on the importance of taking actions to improve the situation on territories mentioned above. “It is our job to observe, ask questions and obtain evidence for our next meeting in London in October. We will do everything we can to create a broader understanding of the existing situation here,” she said.

Moon’s visit came just a few days after former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen proposed at an international conference in Tbilisi stating that Georgia should join NATO without the occupied territories (Caucasus Watch reported). The NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for Central Asia and the Caucasus, James Appathurai responded to this statement that “there is no point in a discussion of this issue now”. “I don’t see an appetite in NATO to consider this, nor do I believe the current international security environment makes this idea timely,” Appathurai concluded.

A similar view was outed by David Bragvadze, a researcher at the Georgian Institute of Security Policy (GISP). “Let’s assume tomorrow NATO tells us we can go in and Article 5 can cover the whole of Georgia, including Abkhazia and Tskhinvali. Never mind NATO defences- are we ourselves ready for such a scenario militarily? Hardly. It would be quite far-fetched for anyone to say that, like Germany, we would have to recognize our breakaway territories as sovereign states after becoming NATO members. Another thing to underline is that the non-recognition policy, notwithstanding who has been at the helm of the country so far, has proved a success and we don’t have much to worry that the modern democratic world will change its mind towards this issue anytime soon. What we need to do is not be a failed state when such opportunity arrives to slot seamlessly into the Euro-Atlantic security space,” he elaborated.