“Never say never” – Zurabishvili on Georgia’s accession to NATO

Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili says that Georgia continues to prepare for joining NATO.

On November 21, in the BBC Hardtalk program, journalist Zeinab Badawi cited as an example the statement of the Special Representative of the NATO Secretary General in the Caucasus, Javier Kolomina, that “this will happen when Georgia is ready for NATO entry”, but he does not believe that “it will be possible to integrate only one part of Georgia.

When asked by a journalist how possible it is to join NATO under the conditions of Russia’s occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the President replied:

“Never say never”.

According to President Zurabishvili, unexpected processes are taking place in the world, for example, “no one expected that Russia would be so close to defeat” in a war with a neighboring country.

“I think things are changing faster than we’ve ever seen. We are preparing to join NATO. We conduct exercises together with NATO, including after the start of the war in Ukraine, we had military exercises on our territory. Therefore, we remain cautious, but still do what is necessary … This [оккупация двух регионов] is a deterrent, but look at Germany. There are examples in Eastern Europe,” he said.

West Germany became a member of NATO in 1955. After the end of the Cold War and the reunification of Germany, East Germany joined the Alliance as part of Unified Germany.

Based on the problem of the occupied territories of Georgia and taking into account the fact that the alliance does not want to get involved in an armed conflict with Russia because of the already existing conflict in the regions of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali, the option of Georgia’s entry into the North Atlantic Alliance has been unofficially discussed for a long time in academic and political circles. with the proviso that the fifth article will not apply to the occupied territories.