With five days left to go before a parliamentary vote on the presence of Russian peacekeepers in the breakaway region of South Ossetia, Georgian officials are taking steps to assure the international community that caution dictates their actions toward Moscow.
From the look of Millennium Challenge's modern offices in Tbilisi, it might seem that the US government-funded program to reduce poverty in Georgia through economic growth is running full speed ahead. But, four months after the signature of the US's Millennium Challenge agreement with Georgia, the money over $300 million -- has yet to arrive.
Georgia's charge that Russian-backed "terrorists" were responsible for a February bomb blast that killed three and injured dozens more is threatening to further acerbate relations between Moscow and Tbilisi, even as Russia begins its historic military pull-out from the South Caucasus state.
Georgia's attempt to promote a negotiated solution to the South Ossetia conflict appears to be stalling, with separatist leaders in Tskhinvali viewing Tbilisi's commitment to peace as insincere. Meanwhile, Georgians living in South Ossetia are growing restive, prompting some local officials to strongly criticize President Mikheil Saakashvili's regional peace plan.
With Georgia's democratic development under heavy scrutiny, Parliament Speaker Nino Burjanadze recently visited the United States to shore up support for President Mikheil Saakashvili's reformist administration.
Promoting Georgia's bid to integrate into Western security structures, Georgian Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili recently visited Washington for talks with "friends" and "allies," including US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Recent protests by ethnic Armenians, Georgia's largest ethnic minority, against the closure of a Russian military base in the predominantly Armenian region of Samtskhe-Javakheti have helped underscore the difficulties faced by the Saakashvili administration as it promotes inter-ethnic accord in the country.
Georgia is fast becoming a center of attention for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, but government officials and foreign military advisors cite a range of problems that complicate Tbilisi's attempt to become a member of the Atlantic alliance.
In his first public comments on the topic, Georgian Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili distanced himself from a corruption scandal in the Shida Kartli region that has embroiled a political protégé. Okruashvili also downplayed the notion that the scandal is a linked to a power struggle between Georgia's defense and interior ministries.
