Georgia leader plans close ties with U.S.

The Republic of Georgia plans to be a close ally of the United States and its giant neighbor Russia will have to live with that fact, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said in an interview yesterday.

The newly elected president, who engineered the ouster of former President Eduard Shevardnadze last fall, was in a buoyant mood after what aides described as a “very warm” meeting with President Bush yesterday in the Oval Office.

“The relationship is based on shared values,” said the hulking U.S.-trained lawyer, who emphasized the “kinship” and “chemistry” between Georgia and the United States during a meeting at Blair House with editors and reporters from The Washington Times.

Mr. Saakashvili said he had recently met for 4 hours with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he found “nostalgic” over the demise of the former Soviet Union but desirous of better relations with his neighbors.

“They are getting used to our cooperation with the Americans and learning to live with it,” Mr. Saakashvili said.

Almost every member of the new Georgian government has been trained in the United States, making the new leadership a natural ally of the West and the United States. Defense Minister Gela Bezhuashvili, for example, is a graduate of Southern Methodist University in Dallas and of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

“Basically we speak the same language,” Mr. Saakashvili said.

Georgia, a country of 5 million people wedged among Chechnya, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Black Sea and the oil-rich Caspian Sea, has become one of the largest recipients of U.S. aid and is actively cooperating with Washington in the war against terrorism.

Mr. Saakashvili said his country was sending 500 troops to supplement the 200 soldiers it already has in Tikrit, Iraq, and noted that the United States is training two Georgian military brigades and a counterterrorism force that could be deployed at home or abroad.

The United States is also working with other countries to build a pipeline that will carry the vast Caspian Sea oil reserves through Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey to the Mediterranean Sea.

“We have very good security cooperation,” Mr. Saakashvili said, lounging comfortably before a meeting with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. “Even my personal bodyguards are trained by Americans.”

Mr. Saakashvili took office with an overwhelming election victory following his leading role in the “Rose Revolution” that forced the resignation of the corruption-tainted former Communist Party boss Eduard Shevardnadze in November.

Georgian authorities have since arrested several officials from Mr. Shevardnadze’s government on corruption charges, including his son-in-law as he was boarding a plane headed for Paris last week.

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