NATO has - as it already does with Russia - begun sharing radar data with Georgia as part of the Cooperative Airspace Initiative, NATO spokesman James Appathurai said on March 12.

“We have with number of countries, not just with Georgia, with number of partner nations programs to establish connections between their radar pictures of their airspace and ours,” he said at a news conference in Brussels.  “We have very similar program of cooperation with the Russian Federation, which we call Cooperative Airspace Initiative. And recently we have in essence plugged in the Georgian system to the larger NATO system so that there is a greater visibility of wider European airspace, just as we have [with Russia] – just recently we had exercises, successful tests of plugging in of airspace picture of the Russian Federation with our system.”

He also said that NATO allies fully support Georgia’s territorial integrity and added that the alliance had not yet made any decision on a possible invitation for Georgia to join the Membership Action Plan. He also reiterated that the decision would be made only by NATO-member states, “as no outside party has veto” on the decision.