Lawmakers launch NATO push with Georgian leader

Two top members of the House Foreign Affairs panel on Europe will introduce a resolution urging Georgia’s rapid accession to NATO during a Capitol Hill event with the country’s visiting prime minister.

The resolution from Reps. Ted Poe (R-Texas), the Number 2 Republican on the panel, and ranking member Bill Keating (D-Mass.) comes at a time of growing revolt against Russian influence in the former Soviet republics, notably Ukraine. Russia and Georgia fought a brief border war in 2008 and Russian has been occupying disputed parts of the country since then.

“The government of Georgia will do everything within our reach to withstand possible foreign coercion, as we simply are not going to compromise our European future,” the prime minister, Irakli Garibashvili, said in a speech before the Atlantic Council on Tuesday. 

“We are calling for your support not because we are internally divided or unsure of our aspirations. Rather, we call on our Western friends to help withstand foreign pressures that threaten to reverse the gains that the free world made in our region since the dissolution of the Soviet Empire.”

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