By Piotr Smolar

Grigol Vashadze, chief of the Georgian diplomacy, reaffirms, in an interview with "Le Monde", the wish of its country to get closer to NATO and the EU

Georgia does not want to be the victim of the revision of the American politic vis-à-vis of Russia. After years of tight relationships with the Bush administration, the authorities of Tbilisi have assisted, worried, to the attempts of rapprochement between Washington and Moscow initiated by Barack Obama on some crucial files, like the disarmament or the Iranian nuclear program.

Almost sixteen months after the quick war with Russia declared on the subject of South-Ossetia, the Georgian Foreign Affairs Minister, Grigol Vashadze, was in visit in Paris, Thursday 26th of November. After having had a meeting with the diplomatic counselor of Nicolas Sarkozy, Jean-Daniel Levitte, M. Vashadze met his French homologue, Bernard Kouchner, with whom he signed an agreement of cooperation on the matters of police and civil security. The Georgian minister repeated the engagement of his country to guaranty its sovereignty: come closer to NATO and EU On the 3rd of December, will take place in Brussels a new meeting of the NATO-Georgia commission, put in place after the war.

In an interview with Le Monde, M. Vashadze has dismissed the idea of an isolation of Georgia, which would be the consequence to a new order between Washington and Moscow. "I can assure you at 100% that at each summit between the United States and Russia, Georgia is among the three of four major themes discussed of, he says. We have with Washington a strategic partnership in all the sectors, and it is not only a slogan." The Georgian minister shows proof of it in the frequency of his meetings with the State Secretary, Hillary Clinton, who he met three times since January.

However, Grigol Vashadze does not hide his reserve concerning the possible sale of the Mistral warship by France to Russia. Estonia, member of the EU, has already expressed its questions. "Everyone is very worried in the region, acknowledges the minister. It is a new generation ship that can welcome, if I remember well, 16 assault helicopters, 900 soldiers, 16 tanks. Where would such a ship go? Neither in the Baltic against Finland, nor in the Pacific against Japan or China. Everyone knows that it would be in the Black Sea, against Ukraine and Georgia." In Vladimir Putin's circle, visiting Paris on Friday, it is explained that the contract is far from being signed. "The Mistral is not the most important question on the Franco-Russian agenda, explains a counselor. It is not as if the contract was about to be signed. We are only at the stage of collecting information."

For the Georgians, the Russian military threat is still a reality. The occidental leaders would be wrong, according to M. Vashadze, to search, to reassure themselves, differences of approach between the Russian president, Dmitri Medvedev and his prime minister, Vladimir Putin. "The Russians have the financial and logistic resources to be finished with Georgia and its government. They already occupy 20% of our territory (South-Ossetia and Abkhazia, who proclaimed their independence). They could decide to take 40% of it and install a regime of Vichy type in the rest of the country. The only thing that holds them back is the very high political price that they would have to pay."

The permanence of this threat explains the attachment of Tbilisi to the presence of European observers deployed in the frontier zone. However, these observers have a limited maneuver margin, since Russians are forbidding their entry on the South-Ossetian or Abkhazian territory.
The observations, in consequence, to satellite images to measure the military reinforcement decided by Moscow in the two separatist regions. "The observers should not be called back, nor weakened, nor replaced. This mission is an incredible success, that contributes to Georgia's stability, assures M. Vashadze. We will continue to reclaim their access to all the territories, in accordance with the Sarkozy plan of August 2008, access that is refused by the Russians. (...) They do not want any witnesses. But, everyday, in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, there are hostages takings, raping, kidnappings and burgles.

Named in December 2008, the Georgian Foreign Affairs Minister is an excellent connoisseur of Russia, where he lived between 1975, arriving at 16 years old, and 2005, when he chooses to come back to his native country. Having the double-nationality, he became one of the targets of the Russian media and of the Duma after the August 2008 war. Contrarily to his first wish, he decided to give up his Russian passport. "I have never been ashamed of my Russian citizenship. I have always been proud of the culture and of the people of Russia. It is my homeland. I had no intention of abandoning the citizenship until the Duma threatened to take it away from me.

URL:http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2009/11/27/la-georgie-s-inquiete-du-projet-de-vente-du-navire-de-guerre-francais-mistral-a-la-russie_1272953_3214.html