The Wall Street Journal publishes interview with the title- West Reluctant to Let Georgia Into the Club. The author of the article underlines that the most big challenge Georgia awaits in September 4-5 when NATO leaders will gather on Wales Summit with the agenda about Georgia, reports GHN.
As much of the world's attention is focused on Ukraine, the West is approaching a crossroads with another country central to the struggle between Europe and Russia: the small but strategic nation of Georgia.
Few eastern European countries have pushed harder to ally with the West, and Georgia hopes to advance its membership prospects in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization at a NATO summit in two weeks. Yet some NATO leaders are hesitant.
Georgia also recently made final an "association agreement" with the European Union. But Georgia's decision to file criminal charges against former President Mikheil Saakashvili has startled some EU officials, who worry that the charges are politically motivated.
How Europe wades through those issues could affect its broader battle with Moscow over the countries that form a sort of frontier between Europe and a newly belligerent Russia, from Ukraine to Moldova to Armenia.
"This is one of those key moments," said Nicholas Burns, a former U.S. representative to NATO. "[Russian President Vladimir] Putin is trying to separate some countries from others. Georgia, Armenia, Moldova, Belarus-he is dividing Europe again between east and west."
Despite Georgia's evident enthusiasm for joining Europe, concerns persist about whether it has fully shed a corrupt past. Georgia has contributed more troops to NATO missions in recent years than any other non-NATO member, Alliance officials say, yet there are questions about whether it has democratized enough to merit NATO membership.
Adding to the complexity, Russia, which invaded Georgia in 2008, still occupies two Georgian enclaves, Abkhazia and South Ossetia-meaning Georgia doesn't fully control its own territory.
A big test will come Sept. 4 and 5, when NATO leaders meet in Wales with Georgia's status an item on the agenda. NATO declared six years ago that Georgia would become a NATO member, and Georgia wants the Alliance to grant it a "membership action plan," a stepping stone to full membership.
Some countries worry that granting it a membership plan would provoke Moscow. Instead, NATO leaders are likely to announce in Wales they are increasing up their support for Georgia in more modest ways.
"We will take decisions at the summit that will bring Georgia closer to NATO," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in an interview. "We are preparing a substantial package for Georgia with elements that will enhance our cooperation."
Georgian leaders are disappointed. "There is a degree of frustration perhaps in Georgia," said Natalie Sabanadze, Georgia's ambassador to the EU. "The wish to join NATO is there, and it's being put forward quite clearly and consistently."
Georgia's relations with the EU are similarly unsettled. The Georgian parliament last month unanimously ratified a deal with the EU that bolsters the two sides' political and trade ties. Since then, the Georgia prosecutor's office has filed charges against Mr. Saakashvili, who left office last November, charging him with abuse of power and embezzlement.
The EU issued a careful statement noting that the association deal requires an independent judiciary. But privately, European diplomats are concerned that Georgia could be setting a precedent of political vengeance. Mr. Saakashvili has rejected the charges and said he won't cooperate.
"Mikheil Saakashvili has a long list of friends in Western capitals," said Balazs Jarabik, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Institute for International Peace. "But I think there is a consensus that much will depend on the process against him and how fair it will be."
Now that Russia is menacing Ukraine, some wonder whether the West's relatively subdued response to Russia's 2008 invasion of Georgia helped embolden President Putin to seize Crimea.
Western diplomats see Mr. Putin's actions in Georgia and Ukraine as part of a larger pattern in which Russia occupies or threatens part of a country's territory, seeking to obtain leverage and create a Russian sphere of influence.
Ms. Sabanadze said her country is resisting any such attempts.
"Georgia's European and Euro-Atlantic aspirations have been set out very clearly basically since independence," she said. "If there is one thing that is common from one government to another in Georgia, it is this."