It is the high time that we elaborated a roadmap for Georgia’s NATO membership – Wolfgang Friedrich Ischinger, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference stated during the 12^th Defense and Security Conference in Batumi city of Adjara region.

Ischinger addressed the conference participants from Germany. He said the recent annual group meeting of Munich Security Conference in Minsk discussed the Black Sea region’s security issues.

“The Black Sea region represents one of the main components in Russia-NATO relations and serves as the transit corridor among countries of Near East and east and west Europe. Russia shows great interest in the region. We discussed the issue of occupation of Georgia’s territories in 2008 and illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, and conflict scenarios taking place afterward. Russia’s influence is negatively reflected on problems of Transdnestr and Nagorny Karabakh, and Russia will make further efforts to prevent the strengthening of US and NATO roles in these regions,” Ischinger stated.

According to Ischinger, NATO sticks to the reserved strategy under this background and it also concerns Georgia, which carried out successful reforms after the 2008 Bucharest NATO Summit. “We should not leave Georgia without a roadmap and further plan of membership. This will harm both Georgia’s security and trustfulness of the North-Atlantic Alliance,” he said.

The text of the address of Wolfgang Friedrich Ischinger to the participants of the 12^th Conference of Defense and Security in Batumi was published by Georgian Ministry of Defense.