Georgian Parliamentary Chairperson Nino Burjanadze and Foreign Minister Davit Bakradze met with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in Brussels on March 5.

“Georgia’s aspiration towards NATO is taken very seriously,” Burjanadze told Georgian reporters after the meeting. “I cannot say anything in advance [about whether NATO will extend Membership Action Plan to Georgia or not], but it is clear that the attitude towards Georgia is positive.”

“We have discussed openly what Georgia should do to ensure that the Bucharest summit [in early April] is successful [for Tbilisi] [and improve]Georgia’s chances of becoming an official NATO candidate during this summit,” Bakradze said. “The secretary general noted once again that Georgia has done its homework well.”

President Saakashvili said recently that official NATO candidacy was a real possibility. “The issue of irreversibility of Georgia’s integration into NATO may be solved in this capital of the Black Sea country [Romania],” Saakashvili said in Poland last week. He added that his visit to Poland aimed at securing “a broad coalition” within NATO in support of Georgia’s Membership Action Plan.