“NATO should follow Turkey’s advice and make Georgia a member,” Turkey’s international news platform TRT published the letter written by the Director of the Foreign Policy Center at The Heritage Foundation Luke Coffey.

Georgia is a net contributor to transatlantic security and its journey to democracy is an example to the region

Opinion | @LukeDCoffey https://t.co/KI22fDHGIO

— TRT World (@trtworld) February 4, 2020

Luke Coffey named the reasons why Georgia is important to the Alliance. In the first place, Coffey underlined Georgia’s deployment in Afghanistan and Iraq. He said: “Today, Georgia has almost 900 troops in Afghanistan making it the largest non-NATO troop contributor to the NATO training mission.”

In the second place, Coffey remarked on Georgia’s strategic location as “important for NATO.” He said: “Located in the South Caucasus, Georgia sits at a crucial geographical and cultural crossroads and has proven itself to be strategically important for military and economic reasons for centuries.”

The author of the article mentioned the statement on the enlargement of NATO made by Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu at the World Economic Forum in Davos. As Cavusuglu said, “western friends are not agreeing to invite Georgia because they don’t want to provoke Russia.” Coffee believes Turkish FM made a good viewpoint.

“Turkey has long been a supporter of Georgia’s NATO aspirations when many other members of the Alliance have dithered or wavered on the subject. Few countries in Europe express as much enthusiasm for NATO as Georgia even though it is not a member. While the NATO–Georgian relationship has never been closer, Tbilisi cannot cross the finish line into full membership,” Luke Coffey stressed.

The Director of the Foreign Policy Center at The Heritage Foundation concluded that “it is time for the Alliance to follow the advice of Foreign Minister Cavusoglu, and get Georgia into NATO.”