Conference on Black Sea security opens in Georgia
By Eka Mekhuzla
ITAR-TASS News Agency
September 10, 2004 Friday
TBILISI, September 10 — A regional conference on security of the
Black Sea region opened in Chakva, near Batumi, on Friday. It is being
held under the aegis of Harvard University. Taking part in its work
are fifty-eight military experts from Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia,
Bulgaria, Romania, USA, and Turkey.
The experts, “whose views are heeded by the presidents of many
countries of the world”, Georgian Defence Minister Georgy Baramidze
stated, will discuss some problems of regional security in order to
“provide objective information to the world community, which is very
important for Georgia”. Present at the conference is Deputy Commander
of U.S. Forces in Europe Charles World, who is known to be among the
authors of the U.S. “Training and Equipment Program”. Four battalions
of Georgian commandos were trained in accordance with it.
This is the third conference on Black Sea security that is being
held by Harvard University. The first one took place in Yalta in
2002 and the second one – in Baku in 2003. “Its main purpose is to
promote contacts among the participants of the Harvard Program and
to draw American generals and politicians into the dialogue on Black
Sea security,” officials of the Georgian Defence Ministry pointed out.
Russia, they told Itar-Tass, is not taking part in the conference.