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MOSCOW-Russia has hastened Georgia's march toward membership in NATO by going to war with it over its breakaway province of South Ossetia, a senior U.S. diplomat said on Saturday."I think what Russia has done now is the strongest catalyst it could have created to get Georgia in NATO," U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza, American envoy to the Caucasus, told Russia's Ekho Moskvy radio."This is what is going to happen now. Georgia is going to accelerate its march toward NATO and,I hope,to an action plan in December." The 26-member alliance, which already includes the three former Soviet Baltic states, will convene in December to decide whether to grant Georgia a road map to accession, known as a Membership Action Plan.NATO has promised Georgia, which Russia's considers part of its traditional sphere of influence, that it will one day be admitted to the alliance. But opposition from some European member states has prevented it setting any timeframe.Russia sent its troops into Georgia to defeat an attempt by the country's pro-Western leadership to retake the breakaway province of South Ossetia. Moscow says it acted in its role as a regional peacekeeper to protect South Ossetia, most of whose people have been given Russian passports.But Georgia and its Western allies accuse Russia of going beyond that aim by pushing deep into Georgian territory.To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah...
