Atlantic Council

Four months after the hot phase of Russia’s war on Georgia, Russia continues to violate the European Union-brokered ceasefire agreements of August 12 and September 8.  Notwithstanding, the EU on December 2 resumed Partnership and Cooperation Agreement talks with Russia, which it had suspended September 1 in the wake of Russia’s August assault on Georgia. 

Hakimullah Mehsud makes an eloquent practical argument for development of the East-West Corridor that runs from the Black Sea to the Caspian, across Georgia and Azerbaijan.  His Taliban guerillas are attacking NATO supply convoys traveling from Pakistan to Afghanistan and they recently struck a major logistics depot in the Pakistani town of Peshawar. 

Will the U.S. extend security guarantees to Georgia and Ukraine on a bilateral basis?  With NATO MAPs not on the table for the foreseeable future, pacts with the U.S. are emerging in both countries.  However, Ukraine's is nonbinding, and as my colleague James Joyner points out, Georgia's seems largely symbolic.  RFE/RL ran two articles about the deals late last week. 

The United States and Georgia will sign a "strategic partnership treaty" in the New Year, AFP reports. "Georgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Grigol Vashadze and the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will sign a strategic partnership treaty on January 4 in Washington," foreign ministry spokeswoman Khatuna Iosava told AFP. 

The OSCE's mission in Georgia, which opened in 1992, is coming to a close.  Veronika Oleksyn for AP: OSCE chair Finland called a meeting Monday morning to seek a three-month extension to the mandate, which expires on Dec. 31, to allow time for more negotiations on the mission's future. It had been the topic of behind-the-scenes discussions for some time.  "Unfortunately, there was no consensus on this decision," said Antti Turunen, Finland's ambassador to the OSCE, after the closed-door gathering.

More than four months after the hot phase of Russia’s war on Georgia, Russia continues to violate the European Union-brokered ceasefire agreements of August 12 and September 8. Russia agreed to return to pre-August 7 lines and to withdraw its forces from areas of Georgia adjacent to the separatist territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. It has done neither.

NATO and Russia are talking again for the first time since the August invasion of Georgia, AP reports. NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Dmitry Rogozin, Moscow's ambassador to the alliance, met over lunch Friday in the first high-level meeting after a four-month hiatus caused by the war.

Standing in front of Sameba Cathedral in Tbilisi on a recent trip, I couldn’t help but be in awe of this striking building. The new church is a work in progress, abuzz with activity, and well attended by the city’s residents, including many of its young people.

Four months after the hot phase of Russia’s war on Georgia, Russia continues to violate the European Union-brokered ceasefire agreements of August 12 and September 8.  Notwithstanding, the EU on December 2 resumed Partnership and Cooperation Agreement talks with Russia, which it had suspended September 1 in the wake of Russia’s August assault on Georgia. 

Washington and London have proposed dropping the NATO MAPs for Georgia and Ukraine, favoring instead an open-ended development plan to bring both countries closer to membership. While Germany and France protest such unorthodoxy, this more flexible approach may allow NATO to prudently balance its interests with Russia and for eventual Georgian-Ukrainian expansion.