Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Secretary General of the North-Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) spoke about last phase of NATO-led ISAF operations in Afghanistan, anti-missile systems in Europe and current situation in Caucasus during the interview with euronews.
To euronews' question: "Are you worried that these exercices will take place near Georgia, almost coinciding with elections there?", Rasmussen responded:
"We are not opposed to exercises but we request transparency as a confidence building measure: what is the purpose of the exercise, where does it take place, how is this exercise conducted? We have not received any formal information from Russia, which we strongly regret. ".
Euronews asked Rasmussen about Georgia's aspiration to NATO: "But you seem very keen to see Georgia joining NATO. Obviously it's going to anger Russians even more. How far is NATO ready to move into what Moscow considers its sphere on interest?".
As Rasmussen explained, NATO sticks to a very fundamental principle to which all nations in the Euro-Atlantic area signed up in 1999 in an OSCE charter. That fundamental principle is that each individual nation has a right to decide its alliance affiliation itself. He hopes Russia also sticks to that. So it's for Georgia to decide. And Georgia has declared that it is a Georgian aspiration. And in 2008 NATO decided at a summit in Bucharest that Georgia will become a member of NATO, after Georgia fulfills the necessary criteria.
