Rasmussen Says, Georgia Achieved Significant Progress on its Path Towards NATO - Rasmussen

Tbilisi. Georgia has achieved significant progress
on its path towards NATO integration - NATO Secretary General, Anders Fogh
Rasmussen, stated at a joint news conference with Georgian Premier, Bidzina
Ivanishvili, in Tbilisi, on June 26.

"I will be straight, open and say
that when I look at the development in Georgia since I visited Georgia first
time some years ago as Prime Minister of Denmark, then, we have seen clear
progress and during that period of time, obviously, Georgia has moved closer to
NATO. Georgia has implemented certain reforms and Georgia continues to
implement necessary reforms. There are still things to do, but in collaboration
we will work and carry through necessary reforms to achieve greater
progress," NATO Secretary General stressed.

In his words, the North-Atlantic Alliance
welcomes Georgia's Euro-Atlantic integration and will help to accelerate this
process.

"As you may know, only Georgia and
Ukraine have special commissions. We established a NATO-Georgia Commission in
2008 to follow up on what we decided at the Bucharest Summit earlier, in 2008.
And that decision was that Georgia will become a member of NATO, provided, of
course, that Georgia fulfills the necessary requirements. So, within the
NATO-Georgia Commission we cooperate to achieve the goal we set at the summit
in 2008," NATO Secretary General stated.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen stressed that NATO
doors remained open to the countries that were willing to become its members
and met the necessary criteria.