Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said Tbilisi should consider Abkhaz and South Ossetian warnings that by joining NATO Georgia would lose the separatist territories “forever.”

“The Abkhaz and South Ossetian leadership have clearly stated their objections to Georgian plans to join NATO,” Karasin said in an interview with the Russian weekly magazine Ogoniok. “It has been declared clearly by them [the secessionist authorities] that by joining the Alliance, Georgia would lose those unrecognized republics forever. It would be useful [for Georgia] to take this into account.”