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UPPER HOUSE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN DISCUSSES ENERGY AS A 'WEAPON.' Mikhail Margelov, who chairs the Federation Council's International Relations Committee, was quoted by "Novye izvestia" on June 5 as saying that "Russia is not about to transform oil and natural gas into a foreign-policy weapon, but the country's leadership believes that oil, gas, and electric power can well be used as a diplomatic weapon," RIA Novosti reported (see "RFE/RL Newsline," May 4 and 30, 2006). Margelov stressed that "there is no 'cold war' whatsoever [today], but no country can pursue an independent policy without affecting somebody else's interests." He nonetheless noted that there is a lack of trust between Russia and unnamed Western countries as they compete for influence in former Soviet republics. Margelov defended the recent rise in Russian gas prices for Ukraine, saying that it is not fair to consumers in Germany to charge them far more for gas than those in Ukraine. PM

On May 11, the Georgian parliament passed a resolution expressing support for the country's aspirations to NATO membership. And three weeks later, on May 30, NATO's Parliamentary Assembly adopted a resolution noting Georgia's "significant progress" in implementing the goals set out in the Individual Partnership Action Plan endorsed in late 2004 and calling for the beginning of Intensive Dialogue -- the next stage in cooperation -- with Georgia. But Georgia's chances of joining NATO before President Mikheil Saakashvili's first presidential term expires in January 2009 are nonetheless slim, if not non-existent.

Accession first to NATO and then at some later date to the EU has been one of the cornerstones of Georgian foreign policy ever since the advent to power of a young and enthusiastically pro-Western leadership in the wake of the so-called Rose Revolution of November 2003. But Georgia's chances of joining NATO have been clouded over the past 18 months by significant inconsistencies in defense policy apparently dictated by the need to resolve the deadlocked conflicts with the breakaway unrecognized republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and by growing misgivings over the new leadership's seemingly cavalier attitude to Western standards of democracy and human rights.

For example, the downsizing of the armed forces advocated in the late 1990s by the International Security Advisory Board (ISAB) of Western advisers has been reversed. The ISAB noted in its report for 2005 that plans to raise the number of brigades to four and increase the size of the reserve force "represent an increase of 25-30 percent on the figures enshrined in the original IPAP and "raise questions of affordability."

That planned increase in manpower is difficult to reconcile with the pledge enshrined in Georgia's IPAP to seek a peaceful, not a military, solution to the conflicts with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and with Saakashvili's argument, cited in a May 4 article in "Jane's Defense Weekly," that Georgia needs small, efficient armed forces that can interoperate with NATO troops. Nor is it clear, despite extensive U.S. financial assistance and training, whether the Georgian armed forces as a whole, rather than just one or two individual crack brigades, meet NATO standards.

Some skeptics have questioned the rationale for the intensive program of training reservists that got under way in late 2004. Military lawyer Shalva Tadumadze of the NGO Law and Freedom told Caucasus Press in February 2005 that the training program as then constituted was of no practical benefit, and a waste of money. But Giorgi Tavdgiridze, who was dismissed as rector of the Georgian Military Academy when that body was closed last year, made the point at a conference in Tbilisi in March 2006 that the reservist battalions are headed by members of President Saakashvili's United National Movement (GEM) and could theoretically be deployed to defend its hold on power. "What we are witnessing today is the formation of the ruling party's armed units on taxpayers' money," Caucasus Press on March 23 quoted him as saying. One month earlier, when a GEM member was named to head the National Guard, Tavdgiridze expressed similar fears that the guard could mutate into "the military wing of the National Movement."

In addition, while funding for the armed forces has been raised substantially since 2003, little information on how those funds were spent was made available until last month, when Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili provided a breakdown of expenditures for 2005. Okruashvili's detractors have accused him of spending millions of dollars at his own discretion, without subsequently accounting for how those funds were used.

Visiting Tbilisi in late May, Robert Simmons, who is the special representative of the NATO secretary-general for the South Caucasus and Central Asia, positively assessed Georgia's progress in recent months in implementing defense and security reform, but added that this process was a "difficult" one, Caucasus Press reported on May 25. Simmons also noted that other aspects of the IPAP still need to be addressed, specifically developing an inventory of both manpower and equipment and ensuring budget funds are spent effectively. Unnamed Western officials cited by "Jane's Defense Weekly" focused on those IPAP requirements that address domestic politics and human rights, and questioned "whether Georgia is really a democracy."

In his annual address to parliament in February of this year, President Saakashvili confidently predicted that Georgia will receive a formal invitation to join NATO this year and "has a very good chance" of being accepted into the alliance, along with Ukraine, in 2008. Ukraine has already embarked on the Intensified Dialogue that is intended as a preliminary to a Membership Action Plan (MAP). But NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Sofia in April that although the NATO summit in Riga in November 2006 will discuss enlargement, no "concrete decisions" will be made, although countries that aspire to membership will receive "a signal," the nature of which will depend on their performance up till then.

Moreover, in the two previous rounds of NATO enlargement there has been an interval of up to two years between the issuing of a formal invitation to begin accession talks (made to Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic at the NATO summit in Madrid in 1997, and to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Romania at the Prague summit in 2002) and those countries' formal acceptance into membership (in 1999 and 2004 respectively). And three more countries -- Albania, Croatia, and Macedonia -- are in the process of implementing their respective MAPs and are thus ahead of Georgia and Ukraine in the "queue"; they were identified in the final document adopted at the Istanbul summit on 2004, and again in Sofia in April, as the most likely next candidates for admission.

So, assuming that Georgia does not receive a formal invitation to begin accession talks in 2006, and that, as has been past practice, such invitations are formalized at a NATO summit, the soonest Georgia could expect to receive such an invitation would be 2008, with membership possibly following in 2010. Georgia may nonetheless be hoping to persuade Washington, and other NATO members, that its situation is unique, and that in light of the perceived threat Russia poses to Georgia, Georgia should be exempted from the normal procedure. But decisions within NATO are made by consensus, and it is debatable how many of its 26 members would be prepared to antagonize Russia by bending the rules in Georgia's case.

Both Simmons and the May 30 NATO Parliamentary Assembly resolution registered Georgia's desire to make the transition from IPAP to Intensified Dialogue and then to MAP. But while Simmons declined to specify any timeframe for doing so, the assembly resolution called for NATO governments to decide "as soon as possible, and preferably by summer 2006," on beginning an Intensified Dialogue. It did not, however, suggest when Georgia might make the transition from Intensified Dialogue to MAP. Whether the prospect of an imminent Intensified Dialogue will serve as an incentive to the Georgian authorities to take decisive action to curtail human rights violations, especially on the part of the Interior Ministry, and to step up efforts to achieve a peaceful solution to the Abkhaz and South Ossetian conflicts remains to be seen.

BELARUSIAN OPPOSITIONIST SENTENCED TO 10 DAYS IN JAIL IN ABSENTIA. A district court in Minsk on May 19 tried in absentia Vyachaslau Siuchyk and sentenced him to 10 days in jail, finding him guilty of participation in an unauthorized demonstration in the Belarusian capital in March after the presidential election, Belapan reported on June 5. Hanna Siuchyk, the oppositionist's wife, told the agency that she received notification of the sentence just a few days ago. Police reportedly beat Siuchyk up while arresting him near the opposition tent camp on October Square in Minsk on March 23. He was subsequently hospitalized with a head injury and left for Ukraine following his discharge from the hospital. JM

WILL UKRAINE SEE COALITION ACCORD THIS WEEK? Oleksandr Turchynov from the Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT) on June 5 urged the bloc's negotiation partners, Our Ukraine and the Socialist Party of Ukraine (SPU), to immediately sign a coalition accord and form a new cabinet, the "Ukrayinska pravda" website (http://www.pravda.com.ua) reported. Turchynov told journalists that Our Ukraine and the SPU do not oppose the idea of Yuliya Tymoshenko heading the government. "There has been no opposition [to this idea] but, fearing Tymoshenko in the post of prime minister, [they] are looking for mechanisms to paralyze the work of the cabinet of ministers, and this is what we will never agree with," Turchynov added. Turchynov noted that there are "15-17 diverging positions" in the coalition talks, but added that a potential meeting of the three forces with the president could contribute to resolving major disagreements. "A meeting with the president should give an answer to the question whether it is possible to create a coalition in the SPU, BYuT, and Our Ukraine format," Turchynov said. He predicted that if the three forces signed a coalition accord by the planned resumption of the parliamentary session on June 7, a parliamentary recess would be prolonged for "working out other important issues." JM

SOCIALISTS URGE UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT TO SACK DEFENSE MINISTER OVER U.S. NAVAL VISIT. The SPU has requested that President Viktor Yushchenko dismiss Defense Minister Anatoliy Hrytsenko over what they consider the unauthorized visit of a U.S. naval cargo ship in the Crimean port of Feodosiya last month (see "RFE/RL Newsline," June 2, 2006), Interfax-Ukraine reported on June 5. The SPU also wants the president to determine the responsibility of other officials involved in the Feodosiya incident. "[Senior officials] have overstepped the legal framework, discredited state institutions, and become an additional source of tension in the region," the SPU said in a statement, adding that the ensuing anti-NATO protests in Crimea were provoked by "violations of the law on the presence of foreign troop in Ukraine." JM