Estonia continues to support giving MAP to Georgia within 2008

Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet told the press after meeting with his Georgian colleague Eka Tkeshelashvili that there had been no changes in principle in countries' views concerning giving MAP to Georgia and Ukraine. He said that the Estonian position had also remained unchanged and Estonia continued to support giving MAP to Georgia and Ukraine within 2008.

But Paet added that also the position of the countries in whose opinion it was still too early to give MAP to Ukraine and Georgia had not changed.

Paet said that establishment of the NATO-Georgian council was both a symbolical and substantial move in the relations between the alliance and Georgia.

The Georgian foreign minister underlined that the Russian attack had not made Georgia give up its movement on the NATO course, and as a result Russia had not achieved its aim.

Reuters reported U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates as saying that the US urgently recommended to its allies giving MAP to Georgia within this year. At the same time German Chancellor Angela Merkel maintains that it is still early to give MAP to Georgia.

Tallinn newsroom, +372 610 8814, sise@bns.ee