Georgia’s Defense Minister Irakli Alasania said boosting of bilateral defense cooperation and regional security was discussed during his meeting with Secretary of the U.S. Army, John McHugh, in Tbilisi on September 22.

Alasania said that this visit is “particularly important” as it came after U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel visited Georgia two weeks ago.

“Today we discussed the bilateral cooperation issues that we agreed to deepen during Mr. Hagel’s visit,” Alasania said.

“I want to stress that our bilateral cooperation aims at boosting Georgia’s defense capabilities. This was one of the issues which we discussed in details during the meeting,” Alasania said.

Secretary of the U.S. Army, John McHugh, arrived in Tbilisi on September 20 after trip to Ukraine, where he toured annual multinational exercise Rapid Trident 2014. A Georgian infantry platoon is among 1,500 troops from 15 nations, participating in these exercises, held in Yavoriv, close to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. Chief of General Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces, Maj. Gen. Vakhtang Kapanadze was in Ukraine over the weekend, attending these exercises.

“We also discussed regional security issues, situation in Ukraine, as well as situation in the Middle East, which poses threats not only to our region, but to the entire world; we spoke about forms of our joint efforts in the face of these challenges,” the Georgian Defense Minister said.