TBILISI: Georgia’s hopes of joining the NATO military alliance are in tatters following its disastrous war with Russia and flagging US support for its membership bid, analysts said on Thursday.

Georgia had hoped to win a Membership Action Plan (MAP) to join NATO in Brussels next week, but on Wednesday US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that the plan was off the table for both Georgia and Ukraine.

The top US diplomat insisted the move did not signal a policy shift, but her statement was a concession to European concerns that both countries are far from ready to join the alliance.

“They’re talking about a new form of cooperation, something other than MAP, which has become too controversial,” Georgian political analyst Tornike Sharashenidze said.

“But now it doesn’t look like anything is going to happen for a long time.... It has become much more complicated by the war,” he said.

While the US and NATO’s eastern European members have strongly supported Georgia’s membership bid, western European nations, in particular France and Germany, have lobbied against the move.

Opponents of putting Georgia on a fast track to membership also raised concerns over its lack of control over two separatist regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and over continued doubts about democratic standards.

Analysts said concerns have been deepened by the war in August, which saw Russian troops pour into Georgia to repel a Georgian military attempt to retake South Ossetia.

Russian forces later withdrew to within South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but Moscow’s subsequent recognition of the two regions as independent states has made it all but impossible for Tbilisi to regain control over the provinces.

Paata Zakareishvili, an analyst with the Tbilisi-based Centre for Development and Cooperation, said the conflict showed that bringing Georgia into NATO would not only have no security benefits for the alliance, but also present risks.

“NATO is a security system and they realised that this security might be weakened by any moves regarding Georgia’s integration into NATO,” he said.

The war and its aftermath have also done nothing to quell doubts over Georgian democracy raised by a police crackdown on anti-government protesters last year.

In a report released on Wednesday, the International Crisis Group said President Mikheil Saakashvili’s administration would be “severely tested” in the coming months unless it urgently implemented promised reforms.

“Georgia is not ready for NATO membership – it does not yet meet the standards of democracy for a NATO member,” said Shalva Lazarishvili, an analyst with the opposition-linked Foundation for Democratic Development.

The cooling off of support for NATO membership, he said, “is a consequence not only of the events in August, but of the disappointment in (Western countries) that Georgia hasn’t made sufficient democratic reforms since the conflict.”

Rice said on Wednesday that there was no need to discuss the MAP for either Georgia or Ukraine. “Georgia and Ukraine are not ready for membership. That is very clear,” she said.

Officials in Tbilisi downplayed the statement, saying MAP is not the only path to membership.

“It has been acknowledged that Georgia is ready for the next step towards NATO membership,” Georgian Deputy Prime Minister Giorgi Baramidze told journalists in Tbilisi.

“For us it’s all the same whether it will be MAP or any other mechanism.”

Sharashenidze also said Georgia’s hopes have not been completely dashed.

He said the creation of a NATO-Georgia Commission after the war was “a huge step forward” and that bilateral military cooperation with NATO members would continue.

And importantly, he said, despite repeated rejections there is still strong public support in Georgia for joining the alliance.

“There is some disappointment with NATO membership procedures, but not with NATO itself,” he said.—AFP