Georgia: Tbilisi Mourns Polish President Kaczynski's Death

The tragic death of Polish President Lech Kaczynski and other top Polish officials in an airliner crash outside of the Russian city of Smolensk is striking an emotional chord in Georgia. Kaczynski had been one of Georgia's top boosters for membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili declared April 11 an official day of mourning for Kaczynski and declared the 60-year-old late president a "national hero of Georgia." The airliner crash occurred on April 10.

"If I had to name [a person] who played an amazing role in terms of fighting for Georgia's freedom, for Georgia's future, I would put President Kaczynski very high in that gallery," Saakashvili said during an April 10 interview on CNN.

At a NATO summit in 2008, Kaczynski led an effort to secure a pledge that Georgia and Ukraine should eventually be admitted to the Atlantic Alliance. Kaczynski also was one of several Central European government leaders who traveled to Tbilisi to show solidarity with Georgia during its disastrous 2008 war with Russia.

Enthusiasm within NATO for Georgian membership has dropped considerably since the 2008 war. France and Germany are reportedly opposed to the idea, while the Baltic States and Central European alliance members remain open to the concept. US opinion is cooler now than it was prior to the Georgian-Russian war, although Washington continues to be one of Tbilisi's most important suppliers of strategic assistance.

Poland's NATO policy in the wake of the Smolensk tragedy is not expected to change significantly. Even so, Kaczynski's absence as a cheerleader for Georgian membership already appears to be delivering a hard blow to the Saakashvili administration. Georgian officials could not be reached to comment on how they see Kaczynski's death affecting their campaign to secure NATO membership. Russia is adamantly opposed to the idea of Georgia being a NATO member.

Georgia is now the only former Soviet state actively seeking NATO membership. On April 2, Ukraine, which recently elected a pro-Russian president, disbanded a government commission charged with overseeing the country's NATO integration efforts.

In Georgia, Deputy State Minister on European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Elene Khoshtaria acknowledged that under existing geopolitical conditions, Georgia cannot expect to gain NATO membership in the near term. "We are not expecting a decision this year. ... And it is not something that either frustrates us or disappoints us at this point," Khoshtaria said.

In recent years, Georgia's and Ukraine's NATO membership bids had come to be seen as connected. Giorgi Kandelaki, head of the Georgian delegation to the Georgia-NATO Inter-Parliamentary Council and a deputy chairman of the Georgian parliament's Foreign Relations Committee, emphasized that Tbilisi remained determined to demonstrate its individual commitment the alliance, he said. At present, Georgia has two battalions serving under US and French command, and currently ranks as the largest per capita contributor to the alliance's force in Afghanistan.

"We don't want to be just consumers; we are ready and we have demonstrated that we are contributors, too." Kandelaki said. [Editor's note: Giorgi Kandelaki formerly worked as an editorial associate for EurasiaNet.org].