Georgia’s integration into NATO will not help to reduce global tensions, Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, said on September 12, at a meeting with a group of foreign journalists and foreign policy experts in Moscow.

“NATO will not become stronger this way, global tensions won't be reduced. What if Georgia had a NATO Membership Action Plan [MAP]? I would not wait for a second in making the decision [to send troops to Georgia] I made at that time [in August]. What would the consequences be? They could be much worse,” he said.

Medvedev also said that NATO’s promise to extend membership to Georgia was “not fair to Russia” and “humiliating to Russia.”

President Saakashvili urged NATO on September 11 not to show any “sign of weakness” and not to resist Georgian integration into NATO.

“If NATO sends a sign of weakness — and clearly this [Russian] invasion was intended to deter, to scare NATO away — if NATO gets scared away, then this will be a never-ending story,” he said.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and ambassadors from the alliance’s 26 member states will visit Tbilisi on September 15-16.

The visitors and Georgian officials will convene the inaugural session of the NATO-Georgia Commission, as envisaged by a decision of NATO foreign ministers on August 19.