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Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili (left) with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg i May. (Interpressnews.)

TBILISI, DFWatch–NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg will visit Georgia this August, according to the Defense Ministry.

The visit was agreed during a meeting Wednesday between Georgia’s Defense Minister Tina Khidasheli and Deputy Secretary General of the alliance, Alexander Vershbow.

During the visit, there will be a ceremony to open a planned joint military training center. Creating the center is part of the substantive package Georgia was promised by NATO at the summit in Wales last year.

During the meeting with Vershbow, Khidasheli brought up the question of whether Georgia will be given a step by step plan for membership in the alliance, a so-called Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the next summit, which she said will be a ‘clear confirmation’ of the decision made in Bucharest Summit in 2008 that Georgia will join NATO at some point.

At the end of the meeting, Khidasheli said that Georgia has successfully fulfilled its obligations to NATO and the ‘logical extension’ would be for Georgia to be given a MAP at the next summit.