NATO: The "Alliance is concerned with level of implementation of reforms requested from Tbilisi"

| News, Georgia

According to NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, Javier Kolomina, the Alliance is "concerned with the degree of execution of the changes that have been asked" from Tbilisi.

According to Kolomina, during his recent meetings with Georgian officials in Tbilisi in late April, "as much as we consider Georgia a very valuable partner, and we are very satisfied with our bilateral relationship, practical cooperation, and level of political dialogue with Georgia," reform-related concerns exist among the Alliance and Allies. "I told my [Georgian] interlocutors that the pace at which the changes are being implemented is not what we want to see," the NATO official stated. "Those improvements have been demanded in a variety of ways, most recently in the yearly national plan," he added. “The core changes on judicial reform, electoral reform, and security sector control are among the ten proposals we [presented]. Things have paused in the previous year and a half, and we are concerned as an Alliance and the Allies themselves," Kolomina said.

"One of the things Georgia needs to do," the Special Representative of the Secretary General said, "is to reclaim the route of reforms, to reclaim the label of reform champion that Georgia had up until a couple of years – three years ago."

In December 2021, Kolomina said that Georgia cannot join NATO with a particular reservation on the 5th paragraph of the North Atlantic Treaty. This means that the Georgian Centre for Strategy and Development's collective defence and NATO's pledge to safeguard the ally would not be extended to Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Read also: NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia visited Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia

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