DUSHANBE, June 19, Asia-Plus – Itar-Tass — Georgian Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili said GUAM member-countries would like to involve their military and police contingent in peacekeeping operations.
Bezhuashvili told a news conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, on June 18 that they agreed to work on allowing GUAM to involve their military and police contingent in peacekeeping operations.
Georgia “seeks GUAM peacekeeping forces to be created as soon as possible”, the minister said.
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov said, “The creation of GUAM peacekeeping forces is a long process. This issue is being discussed a long time. It is necessary to thoroughly consider this issue, primarily by experts of the four countries.”
“This is a new element for all of us. We have certain experience, but it’s timely to say we’re going to work on a concrete peacekeeping potential because there are a lot of problems that should be solved by military and diplomats,” the Azerbaijani foreign minister stressed.
Commenting on this issue, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said, “This problem is being discussed. We’ll wait for the results of these discussions. I think that now we should rivet our attention to economic, energy, transport and integration aspects. Of course, in the future we’ll debate this issue with our partners and we’ll see what we can do.”
GUAM, which involves Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova, was created in 1997.
