Merkel backs Georgia’s Nato bid

GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday in the Georgian capital that the ex-Soviet republic, currently mired in conflict with Russia, will join Nato.

“Georgia will become a member of Nato if it wants to — and it does want to,” she said before talks with President Mikheil Saakashvili in Tbilisi.

It was one of the strongest statements yet of support for Georgia’s Nato membership bid, which is fiercely opposed by Russia.

Merkel was in Tbilisi to support Saakashvili and press for the withdrawal of Russian troops who attacked Georgia on August 8 to repulse an offensive by Georgian troops against a Moscow-backed separatist region.

Russian troops remained deployed in the north and west of the country, including units within half an hour’s drive of Tbilisi.

Moscow is furious at Georgia’s attempt to join Nato.

The Western military alliance is divided over how fast to accept Georgia, but has indicated that membership is a matter of when, not if.

Merkel flew to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi yesterday, two days after she met with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

In a speech yesterday, Merkel also suggested that Nato could help rebuild the Georgian military.

Merkel supports the EU ceasefire, saying it needs to be followed “immediately” and that Russian troops need to pull out of neighbouring Georgia.

Meanwhile, Pope Benedict XVI yesterday called for the “immediate opening” of humanitarian corridors between Georgia and the Moscow-backed separatist South Ossetia region.

Expressing his “concern” over the situation in Georgia, which Benedict said he was following very carefully, the head of the Catholic Church appealed to the “generosity” of the international community to help “refugees, especially women and children”.