Pence says US backs Georgia in NATO over Russian objection

Bloomberg

Vice President Mike Pence said the US “strongly” supports Georgia’s ambition of joining NATO, even as Russia remains hostile to the military alliance expanding its influence in Moscow’s former Soviet backyard.
“We see Georgia as a key strategic partner and stand by your territorial integrity and your aspirations to become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,” Pence said at talks with Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, on Tuesday. US President Donald Trump “asked me to extend greetings to you this morning and to say we are with you,” Pence said.
The vice president is also attending joint military exercises involving as many as 800 Georgian and 1,600 US troops during his visit. The Noble Partner 2017 drills, which also include German, UK, Turkish, Slovenian, Ukrainian and Armenian forces, are the largest in the Caucasus republic since Georgia fought a brief war with Russia in 2008 over the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Pence arrived in Georgia on Monday after delivering a similar message in Estonia to leaders of Baltic nations facing the “specter of aggression” from Russia, which he called the greatest threat to their security as NATO members. Georgia wants to join NATO against opposition from Russia, whose annexation of Crimea and involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine has strained ties with the US and Europe the most since the Cold War. Russia accuses NATO of seeking to undermine its security by expanding the alliance’s presence near its borders.
The US is monitoring preparations for major Russian exercises planned on NATO’s eastern border amid concerns about the scale of the military buildup, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. Some 13,000 troops are to take part in joint military drills from Sept. 14-20 in Russia and neighboring Belarus, according to the Belarusian Defense Ministry, which said Russia will also send about 280 military vehicles to the Zapad 2017 exercises.
Pence’s visits to Estonia, Georgia and Montenegro are taking place amid spiraling tensions with Russia after President Vladimir Putin said the US must slash staff at its diplomatic mission by 755, or nearly two-thirds, in retaliation for new sanctions approved by Congress.
Trump “will sign the Russian sanctions bill soon,” Pence said at a news conference later with Kvirikashvili. While the US wants better relations, “Russia has to change its behavior” before this can be achieved, he said.
Kvirikashvili said Georgia’s facing “daily provocations” from Russia, which has encroached deeper into its territory in recent weeks by shifting the dividing lines with the breakaway regions established after the war.
NATO declared at a summit shortly before the 2008 war that Georgia will become a member at some point. While it hasn’t agreed to accept Georgia since then, partly out of concern about antagonizing Russia, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in Tbilisi in September that the alliance is committed to the goal and that “the bonds between NATO and Georgia are stronger than ever.”

Bulgaria, Macedonia ink accord
Bloomberg

The Republic of Macedonia signed a friendship accord with Bulgaria in a bid to improve ties between the Balkan neighbors and revive efforts to join the European Union and NATO.
The former Yugoslav republic’s prime minister, Zoran Zaev, and his Bulgarian counterpart, Boyko Borissov, signed the pact on Tuesday in Skopje, Macedonia’s capital. Bulgaria had demanded the agreement “on friendship, good neighborly relations and cooperation” as a condition of backing Macedonia’s ambitions to become an EU and NATO member.
The move is part of a renewed EU-accession push in the Balkans, where countries including Serbia are bidding to follow Croatia, the most-recent entrant, into the trading bloc. Zaev took office in June in Macedonia’s first leadership change in more than a decade, pledging to resolve conflicts with neighbors to revive his nation’s membership chances. Another obstacle is a naming dispute with Greece, which has a region called Macedonia.
“This treaty sends a message to EU and NATO that the countries in the region have political leaderships that build bridges, supported by democratic peoples,” Zaev told reporters in Skopje. “The Balkans deserve a Euro-Atlantic perspective.”