Georgia: Tbilisi Tries to Get a Feel for the Obama Administration

A top Georgian official is visiting Washington, attempting to bolster ties with a new US administration that has made a priority out of improving relations with Georgia's nemesis, Russia.

The 10-day Washington visit of Eka Tkeshelashvili, national security adviser to President Mikheil Saakashvili, is the first by a senior Georgian official since the new administration of Barack Obama took office in January.

"The US and Georgia are strategic partners and that's a relationship that stands for a long time, and it doesn't depend on personal preferences or choices of administrations . . . but on the vital interest of both states," Tkeshelashvili told a group of reporters March 5 at the National Press Club in Washington.

"It's quite encouraging to see how every person I've met is fully tuned into the complexity of the issues of Georgia and the region," she said in a separate interview with EurasiaNet.

The United States has promised to "reset" relations with Russia, and many of the issues that have soured the US-Russian relationship -- including NATO expansion and Washington's support for new energy corridors -- directly affect Georgia. So the Obama administration will have to walk a fine line if it wants to improve relations with Russia while not abandoning Georgia.

Rhetorically, at least, US officials have tried to walk that line. At February's Munich Conference on Security Policy, Vice President Joseph Biden said that while better relations with Russia were a priority, he insisted that Washington would "not agree with Russia on everything." Biden went on to specify that the United States would neither recognize the independence of the Georgian separatist entities of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, nor acknowledge "any nation [as] having a sphere of influence."

"Sovereign states have the right to make their own decisions and choose their own alliances," Biden emphasized.

On March 5, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton met Georgian officials in Brussels, and gave her verbal support to Georgia. "I reiterated again today -- in our meetings with Ukraine and Georgia -- the United States' firm commitment to each of those nations moving toward NATO membership and our equally strong commitment to work with them along with NATO to make clear that they should not be the subject of Russian intimidation or aggression," she said.

However, translating verbal support into concrete actions will be more difficult, and it is not yet clear how the United States will balance the competing desires of Russia and Georgia. Georgia has positioned itself as sort of anti-Russia, a stance Tkeshelashvili reinforced on her visit to Washington.

"Georgia keeps options open in the neighborhood, which possesses great significance. When we speak about options . . . [we mean] the East-West corridor in energy, and at the same time political options in terms of the spread of democracy and political freedom," she said.

"Part of the challenge for Georgian rhetoric . . . is to acknowledge that the United States is moving forward with its relationship with Russia, [and this] doesn't mean it is denying its relationship with Georgia," said Cory Welt, associate director of the Eurasian Strategy Project at Georgetown University and an expert on the Caucasus. "By setting themselves up as opposite from Russia, it's not going to get them any added value from this administration."

On NATO membership, Tkeshelashvili said that Georgia does not expect political support from Washington so much as technical support to help build up its military to NATO standards. Tbilisi also wants the Obama administration to strongly and publicly condemn the Russian occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, in particular the recent announcement that Russia plans to build a naval base in the Abkhazian city of Ochamchire, Tkeshelashvili said.

But it is not yet clear whether US officials are willing to do those sorts of things, Welt said. "With regard to principles, the United States is going to say all the right things," he said. "But whether the [US] government is going to do anything to accelerate NATO membership or actively restor[e] Georgia's territorial integrity is another matter. And that's the delicate dance they are doing. If they're sincere about wanting to pursue a two-track policy, what concretely could they do on the non-Russia side? And I don't see that anybody's worked it out yet."