GEORGIA-U.S. MILITARY COOPERATION PROGRAM SIGNED.

Georgia’s Chief of the General Staff, Major-General Johnny Pirtskhalaishvili, and U.S. Army Colonel Alan Stolberg, on behalf of the Pentagon, signed yesterday in Tbilisi a program of military cooperation for 1999. The document envisages a total of approximately thirty measures of joint activities and U.S. assistance to Georgia. These include technical assistance, joint exercises of ground and naval forces, and modernization of some training ranges in Georgia preparatory to holding larger-scale exercises under NATO aegis in the year 2001 (Radio Tbilisi cited by Russian agencies, November 10). Officials declined to go into details. The Georgia-U.S. program appears to be second only to the Ukraine-NATO program (see above) in terms of bold planning by the newly independent countries and the Western military.

IOSELIANI AND ACCOMPLICES SENTENCED.