11:37, 2 April 2008

Bagapsh: when taking Georgia to NATO, the Alliance should take into account Abkhazia's opinion

President of Abkhazia calls Secretary General of NATO and representatives of NATO member-states, to take into account the opinion of Abkhazia when considering at the summit in Bucharest the issue of Georgia's NATO membership.

The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports that today President of Abkhazia Sergey Bagapsh has sent a letter to NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and to representatives of NATO member-states running that "the Bucharest summit planning to consider the issues of accession of new members to NATO can create serious problems in the Caucasus."

"We are deeply anxious with the fact that against the background of political instability and unsettled conflicts, certain potential members of the Organization, in particular Georgia, are still considering NATO as a mechanism of forced solution of conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia," President of Abkhazia has emphasized.

Today, NATO summit has opened in Bucharest, which will last till April 4. One of the main points in the summit's agenda is accession of Ukraine and Georgia to the Membership Action Plan (MAP) in the Alliance.

Author: Anzhela Kuchuberiya, CK correspondent