Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has proposed a reunification of Abkhazia with the rest of Georgia on terms of far-reaching autonomy and with the assistance of international guarantors (Civil Georgia, Rustavi 2 TV, March 28). All elements of a political settlement are to be placed on... MORE

Ahead of NATO’s April 2-4 Bucharest Summit, the alliance is preoccupied with maintaining the principles on which it interacts with aspirant countries. The core principles may be summed up as: the open door, membership action plans on the road to that open door, merit-based assessment... MORE

With only three weeks remaining for necessary damage repair prior to the NATO summit, the German government has perhaps irreparably damaged the Membership Action Plan (MAP) goals of Ukraine and Georgia. Chancellor Angela Merkel has turned down those two countries’ MAP candidacies, thereby following the... MORE

Several West European governments cold-shouldered Georgia’s and Ukraine’s applications for NATO Membership Action Plans (MAPs) during the meeting of NATO countries’ ministers of foreign affairs on March 6 in Brussels. Intended to prepare for the NATO Summit due in early April in Bucharest, the Brussels... MORE

On March 6 Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced a unilateral decision by Russia to lift the economic sanctions against Abkhazia. The Ministry also requested the Commonwealth of Independent States Executive Committee to ask CIS member countries to lift those sanctions as well. At the... MORE

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s February 21-22 Moscow visit, nominally for a multilateral Commonwealth of Independent States summit, centered on carefully prepared bilateral talks by the Georgian delegation with outgoing president Vladimir Putin and ministerial counterparts. The visit succeeded in ameliorating the atmosphere of Georgia’s relations... MORE