Georgian president urges Europe to back its NATO ambitions

(VALENCIA) - Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on Tuesday urged European members of NATO to back the former Soviet republic's efforts to join the military alliance, arguing it was a "strategic choice" for the continent.

"This is a key moment for Europe, attributing the status of candidate is not a technical question, it is a strategic choice," he told a gathering of lawmakers from NATO member states in the Spanish port of Valencia.

Saakashvili said Georgia, still reeling from a military defeat by Russia during a five-day war in the separatist Georgian region of South Ossetia in August, could contribute to European security, especially in terms of its energy supply.

With nine former Soviet bloc countries already NATO members, Russia is fiercely opposed to more Soviet-era Warsaw Pact neighbours like Georgia and the Ukraine even starting the process of joining the western military alliance.

In April NATO postponed any decision on offering the two nations a formal Membership Action Plan, or MAP, until a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in December in Brussels.

While the United States backs swift NATO membership for Georgia, which straddles a key westward energy route for Caspian and Central Asian oil and gas supplies, Germany and France argued at the summit that offering Georgia such a road map to either Georgia or the Ukraine could provoke Russia.

NATO set up the MAP program in 1999 to support prospective members of the military alliance while they carry out the economic, legal, military and political reforms needed to join.