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Former Soviet Satellite Georgia to be NATO, EU Member NewsMax.com Wires NEW YORK -- The former Soviet republic of Georgia will be invited to join NATO by 2008 and shortly after will become a member of the European Union, the president of the Caucasus country said Wednesday.
Mikhail Saakashvili, elected president in November 2003 after massive demonstrations against a rigged election, told a Columbia University audience it was inevitable such protests would spread further in the former Soviet Union. Protesters in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, following the example of Georgia's Rose Revolution, overturned fraudulent elections, ridding themselves of longtime rulers. But Saakashvili would not predict what other former Soviet republics might be vulnerable. But, he said, rulers who try to use force to hold back democracy "are on the way out." Story Continues Below
Saakashvili, whose country of 5 million people has 860 troops serving in the U.S-coalition-led forces in Iraq, said his nation will enter both the North Atlantic defensive alliance and the European Union. "By 2008, it is absolutely realistic to count that we might at least get officially invited to NATO and I might even say become a member," he said. "Of course, it takes time, it takes a change of perception within the organization." "NATO (membership), I think is decisive, and is basically very realistic, and as regards the European Union, in the longer run, every country that is European by its history and culture, European by its aspirations, by its self identity, by its goals will inevitable be part of every major larger European institution. This is irreversible." Saakashvili, 38, who received a law degree from Columbia in 1994 and practiced law in New York before returning home, said European Union membership for Georgia was no more unthinkable than once predicting a U.S. president might visit Georgia and salute it as a beacon of democracy - which President Bush did in May 2005. "Saying 12 years ago that the president of the United States will go to this certain country of Georgia and proclaim it as an example for the whole world is unimaginable. So nothing is unimaginable anymore," he said. "Definitely we will get to the European Union faster than people will go to Mars, and they are going to go to Mars quite soon," he said, drawing smiles from his audience at forum for world leaders at Columbia University. The forum was held while global heads of state were in New York for a U.N. summit, marking the world body's 60th anniversary.
© 2005 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Editor's note: Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics: |
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