NATO will contribute to a planned Georgia-NATO training centre with embedded NATO trainers, secretary general of the alliance Jens Stoltenberg said following the meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on December 2.

The foreign ministerial meeting at the NATO headquarters discussed progress in implementing decisions taken at the Wales summit in September, which also included enhanced cooperation package with Georgia, which, among other issues, also involved setting up of a training centre in Georgia. Ukraine and new Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan were also discussed during one-day meeting of NATO foreign ministers.

“Today we also discussed how to help partner countries to make their security sectors more efficient and transparent,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at a news conference.

“We have been working closely [on] this issue with Georgia, Jordan and the Republican of Moldova, based on their requests and their needs. For example we will embed experts from NATO allies [in these countries] to provide advice on issues such as training and defence reform, and we will contribute to new Georgia-NATO training centre with embedded NATO trainers,” he said.

After meeting with Georgian PM’s Irakli Garibashvili in Brussels on November 17, the NATO Secretary General said that the training centre “will help the Georgian forces to maintain their ability to work with NATO and it will prepare Georgia and other partners for future contributions to NATO Response Force.”

Speaking at a news conference on December 2, Stoltenberg reiterated, referring to Russia, that “no other third country can veto or try to stop partnership between NATO and a sovereign nation as Georgia.”

Georgian Foreign Minister, Tamar Beruchashvili, who is visiting NATO headquarters, said on December 2 that the focus of her discussions with her counterparts is implementation of package of enhanced cooperation with NATO, which was offered to Georgia at the Wales summit. Beruchashvili met her counterparts from Bulgaria, Belgium, Portugal, Lithuania, Iceland and Slovakia. 

She also met NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, James Appathurai, who will be visiting Tbilisi this week. Beruchashvili said that she will also meet the NATO Secretary General on December 3.