BATUMI: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced plans Tuesday to help Georgia improve its defences with helicopter upgrades and military training programmes, nearly four years after its war with Russia.
Clinton has used her two-day visit to this Black Sea port to assure
Georgians of unwavering US support for its territorial integrity and to call on Russia to pull back troops in two breakaway Georgian regions that were the focus of the 2008 war.
She also cautioned Georgian leaders that the country would be judged by "the quality of its democracy," and upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections would be a crucial indicator of the progress the country has made.
She urged Georgians not to be distracted by Russian military manoeuvres planned in the autumn, when they go to the polls to elect a new parliament.
"Yes, there will be military manoeuvres but the really important events in the fall will occur inside Georgia and the people of Georgia cast their votes," she said.
"I cannot think of a stronger message to be sent to anyone anywhere in the world," she said. "It is Georgia's elections and that will speak louder than any military exercise."
The programmes announced here did not include lethal military equipment, and instead focused on less controversial self-defence capabilities.
They include training the Georgian military in the use of coastal and air defence radars, training its officers to command brigade-size units, and upgrades of its fleet of transport helicopters, a senior State Department official said.
The United States "remains steadfast in our support for Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity," Clinton said in a session with Georgian and US officials at the outset of her visit.
"We reject Russia's occupation and militarisation of Georgia's territory and we call upon Russia to fulfill its obligations under the 2008 ceasefire resolution including the withdrawal of its forces to pre-conflict positions, and free access for humanitarian assistance," she said.
After the war over Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Moscow recognised the breakaway regions as independent and permanently stationed troops there.
But with parliamentary elections expected in October and presidential polls next year, she emphasized that the US was eager to see Georgia hold model elections and undergo a democratic transition of power.
"The US will welcome a strong relationship with whomever the Georgian people choose," she added.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, a strongly pro-US and pro-NATO politician whose second and final term ends next year, is facing a strong challenge from billionaire tycoon turned opposition leader Bidzina Ivanishvilli.
Asked whether he might opt for the position of prime minister after his presidential term expires, Saakashvili did not rule it in or out. "People's choice is the most respected thing," he said.
Clinton added: "In any democracy, institutions have to be more important than people."
She earlier presided over the commissioning of a refurbished Soviet-era Coast Guard patrol boat, redesignated the P-109, that was gutted and re-equipped to US and NATO specifications with US funds.
The US plans to provide Georgia with two refurbished coast guard cutters and is building a ship repair depot to maintain a growing fleet of patrol boats.
A primary US objective is to prevent the smuggling of nuclear materials from the former Soviet Union, made more difficult by the absence of controls in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Besides nuclear materials, US officials worry the enclaves could be used to smuggle weapons to Syria or to extremist groups in the Black Sea region.
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