Choppy waters
Eastern approaches 2014-04-02
Summary:
IT WAS a rare point of agreement in the country’s polarised politics: on March 7th, 2013, the Georgian parliament adopted a bi-partisan resolution in support of the country’s pro-western course. Even so, recent events highlight how difficult realising that aspiration will be.
On March 26th, Barack Obama, the American president, said that there are “no immediate plans” to expand NATO to include Georgia and Ukraine. As a statement of fact, it is accurate: since neither country has the Membership Action Plan (MAP) they covet, they have no immediate prospects of joining the alliance.
Yet senior government figures in Tbilisi reacted badly, with emotions ranging from denial to disappointment. Irakli Garibashvili (pictured), the prime minister, tried to calm the mood warning against false expectations–only to come in for heavy criticism from the Continue reading