NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg spoke about Georgia ahead of the meetings of NATO Ministers of Foreign Affairs and NATO Ministers of Defence.

“NATO’s open door policy has been a great success. It has helped to spread democracy, the rule of law throughout Europe after the end of the Cold War, and we have almost doubled the number of members from sixteen to now thirty. And NATO’s door remains open. And we have demonstrated that over the last few years with having first Montenegro and then last year, North Macedonia, as new members. We are working with aspirant countries like Georgia, like Ukraine. Our message is that the focus should be on reforms to modernise the defence and security institutions because we believe that that"s the best way to move towards further Euro-Atlantic integration. But we also strongly believe that reforms to modernise defence and security institutions is also an aim in itself. And we continue to provide support, we help with these reforms programmes and we will, of course, continue to do that. And I expect that also, heads of state and government will recommit to continue to provide support to these highly valued partner nations of NATO…

We have increased our presence in the Black Sea. Three NATO Allies are littoral states, Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania. But we also have two highly valued partners, Georgia and Ukraine. We work together with them on also maritime security. We have worked with the Georgian Coast Guard”, - said Jens Stoltenberg.