BRUSSELS, January 27 (RIA Novosti) - Georgia will not
join NATO for at least a quarter of century, the Russian envoy
to NATO said Tuesday.
"We [participants of an informal Russia-NATO Council
ambassadorial meeting January 26 in Brussels] have not
discussed it, as this is not urgent and will not be urgent for
at least 25 years," Dmitry Rogozin told journalists.
After a NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels in
December 2008, Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the
alliance would "beef up" the NATO-Georgia and NATO-Ukraine
commissions, to help speed up reforms needed for the countries'
eventual membership of the alliance.
However, European countries led by Germany blocked
granting either country a Membership Action Plan (MAP).
NATO's refusal to give the two post-Soviet states MAPs was
welcomed by Russia, which strongly opposes the alliance's
expansion into the former Soviet Union.
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