If Georgia joins NATO, it will become a place for the US and Russia to show off their strength.

Ms. Nino Burjanadze. Photo: ITAR-TASS

“This (joining NATO) means we will be playing host to two military forces clashing on our small territory. Any small conflict between them would be catastrophic for Georgia. We are doing what other countries try to avoid. We are trying to turn our small homeland into a show of force between two nuclear-armed ‘elephants,’” she said.

The former speaker of the Georgian parliament also stressed the importance of a direct dialogue with Russia, saying that she would welcome such a step from Georgia’s new Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia. “I would be happy to see it, but this will only happen if the prime minister focuses on national interests,” she added.

On September 10, former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen gave an interview to the Georgian Imedi news agency, where he suggested that Georgia join NATO under a plan that would not apply Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty on collective security to the current issues surrounding Abkhazia and South Ossetia. According to the former Secretary General, this type of accession plan was used by NATO when Germany joined the alliance when it was still divided into East Germany and West Germany. Article 5 states: “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of their Member States in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and they therefore agree that, in the event of such an armed attack, each Member, exercising the right of individual or collective self-defense under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, shall come to the assistance of the Party or Parties so attacked by taking such action, unilaterally or in concert with others, as it considers necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”

Georgia has been cooperating with NATO since the late 1990s, while the late Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze (1928 - 2014) expressed the country's desire to join the alliance at a summit in Prague in November 2002. This intention was later confirmed by his successor Mikheil Saakashvili.

Georgia's new government came to power after the Georgian Dream coalition was elected in October 2012 and continues its policy of joining NATO, considering "gradual normalization of relations with Russia as a paramount goal without compromising Georgia's territorial integrity".

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg visited Tbilisi in 2015 and 2016, when he assured Georgia's leadership that the country would become a NATO member, although he admitted he could not outline a precise timetable for accepting the country into the alliance.