Georgia courting Nato, say analysts

[Marcus Marulus]

Georgia courting Nato, say analysts

8/27/2007


AFP


MOSCOW • Georgia's attempts to score points in a tense diplomatic stand-off with Russia are aimed at accelerating its bid to join Nato but could stretch Moscow's patience too far, observers said.

"There is a threat" that rising tensions between the two former Soviet republics could provoke a confrontation, said Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent Russian defence analyst.

Over the past month, Georgia has accused Russia of dropping a missile on its territory and making a series of incursions into its airspace. Georgian authorities have also announced imminent radar integration with Nato.
In the latest incident, Georgian authorities on Friday said that they had fired on a military plane believed to be Russian and that there were signs the aircraft had been downed in a remote forest.

Russia has denied all these allegations and has in turn accused the Georgian government of "provocation." Meanwhile, Russian newspapers said Georgia's allegations were bringing the country closer to the Western military alliance.

"Nato joins Georgia," ran a headline in the independent Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper on Friday, while the Kommersant daily declared: "Nato takes Georgia under its radar." Western countries, analysts said, can only look on with growing concern. "No one wants a Georgian-Russian confrontation.... The world doesn't want to provoke Russia," Felgenhauer said.

Nato's reaction to the finding of the alleged Russian missile near Tbilisi on August 6 was measured. A Nato spokesman said a few days after the incident that the alliance would be in close contact with Georgia over the incident.

"Georgia risks... not benefiting from complete credibility at a time when it will need Western partners," Salome Zurabishvili, a Georgian opposition leader and the country's former foreign minister, said earlier.
Russia for its part has been making life hard for Georgia in a bid to rein in pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili, who has been actively supported by Washington since coming to power in 2004.

[source]