NATO, EU praise Georgia's democracy after vote

(TBILISI) - NATO and the EU praised Georgia on Thursday for elections which saw a peaceful power transfer from President Mikheil Saakashvili's party to a coalition led by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili.

"This is a sign and a demonstration of Georgia becoming a normal country -- a normal country where governments change through the ballot box," said James Appathurai, the NATO secretary general's special representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia.

NATO had previously described the October 1 parliamentary elections as a "litmus test" for Georgia's aspirations to join the Western military alliance.

"It's a test which has been passed," Appathurai told a news conference in Tbilisi.

European Union enlargement commissioner Stefan Fuele, who also visited Tbilisi on Thursday, praised "the peaceful transfer of power based on the decision of the voters in the democratic ballot".

"Saakashvili and Ivanishvili have put their country's interests first and I salute their patriotism," Fuele said in televised comments.

After defeating Saakashvili's ruling party at the polls and ending its nine-year dominance of the ex-Soviet state, victorious coalition leader Ivanishvili said he would continue the outgoing government's bid to join NATO and ultimately the EU.

NATO has promised Georgia that it will become a member at an unspecified point in the future -- a position that Appathurai reaffirmed.

"NATO remains absolutely committed to Georgia," he said.

Georgia now has 800 troops serving with the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan.

Irakli Alasania, who has been nominated as defence minister in Ivanishvili's incoming government, said Thursday that Georgia would continue deploying troops until NATO's combat mission ends in 2014.

"At that exact time we will begin taking care of our boys' return to the motherland," he told journalists.

Speaking after attending the funeral of the 18th Georgian serviceman to be killed while serving in Afghanistan, Alasania said that such deaths were "the load which Georgia bears for the sake of international security".

Tbilisi's NATO aspirations have infuriated neighbour Russia, which fought a brief war with Georgia in 2008 and sees any further NATO expansion into the former Soviet Union as a threat to its security.