NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for the South Caucasus and Central Asia, Javier Colomina, said: “We have been very clear with Russians – you need to withdraw your troops from wherever these are and when they are not welcomed.”

In an interview with GPB First Channel, NATO Envoy continued:” That is a case of their presence in Ukraine, in Georgia, and in Moldova. And we have mentioned those three countries in every single location that we had with the Russians.”

“At the same time, we have also been very clear that that situation does not either compromise our commitment with the principles that I mentioned before or the options of these countries to accede NATO, if that is your desire, and if that is the decision of our allies. As I said before, Russia does not have a veto on these decisions and their de facto presence will not change that.

The open-door policy is a big part of our security policy and it is a vibrant policy that has worked pretty well. In the last year, we had a couple of cases that show how vibrant it is. Montenegro and North Macedonia only in the last 4-5 years, 2017 and 2019, so it shows how this policy works and how committed we are with it and we continue to be very committed to it,” NATO official Colomina underscored.

Javier Colomina stated that NATO is working on “a reinforce package of measures to increase our cooperation with our aspirant countries.”

“As part of the decisions that we, that the heads of state and government took only this summer at the summit in Brussels, we are right now working on a reinforce package of measures to increase our cooperation with our aspirant countries and that is what we are trying to do as a response to a desire of these particular nations to increase the cooperation with NATO.

At the same time, we are asking – what can you do? I actually answer that before, you should continue to work on your reform path. As I said, there is a concern about the pace of those reforms. There is a need for Georgia to increase the pace of those reforms. you really need to be ready when the moment comes for the allies to agree and for you to request the accession, you need to be ready and to prepare for that moment,” NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative stated.