No third country can prevent Georgia to be NATO member

Georgia will surely become a NATO member, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in Tbilisi on Thursday at a joint press conference following the meeting with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.

The meeting was held at the Presidential Palace and lasted for an hour. It was closed to journalists.

Commenting on the statement by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev that the 2008 war was aimed to wreck Georgia's accession to NATO, Rasmussen said that "in this case this plan failed."

"Georgia will become a NATO member, since it is the right of any state, if certain requirements are meet, and no third country can prevent it," he said.

"We said at the Bucharest summit that Georgia will become a NATO member, and at the Chicago summit this year we confirmed this decision, and we have stated clearly that our doors are open to countries that carry out reforms. You are carrying out these reforms and achieved in this way a great success and we are confident that Georgia will become a NATO member," Rasmussen said.

He stressed that NATO stands firmly on the position of the recognition of the territorial integrity of Georgia and its independence. He thanked Georgia for the contribution it is making to ensure the world security, having such a representative military contingent in Afghanistan,.

In turn, Saakashvili said that Georgia will become a NATO member.

"We are on the path of reform, and our goal remains the same - to ensure our security by joining NATO," he said, expressing satisfaction with frequent visits of the NATO Secretary General to Georgia.

"You come to us so often, this is the fourth visit, that we can grant you not only an honorary Georgian title, but just a Georgian," Saakashvili joked.


/Trend/