NATO Special Representative Welcomes Start of Joint Military Exercise in Georgia

TBILISI - NATO’s Special Representative for Caucasus and Central Asia, James Appathurai welcomed the beginning of NATO- Georgia military exercise 2016, which was launched today at the Joint Training and Evaluation Center (JTEC) of Krtsanisi near the capital of Georgia, Tbilisi.

“I welcome the start of NATO-GEO 2016… which runs from 10-20 November - another milestone in the long-standing, deep cooperation between NATO and Georgia and further recognition of Georgia' commitment to strong defense, to NATO operations and to international security,” Appathurai wrote in Facebook.

The NATO official noted that the exercise involves 350 international personnel from the Georgian Armed Forces, NATO SACT, JFTC, Landcom and many other NATO structures and affiliated centers.

According to him,  NATO-GEO 2016 will train a Georgian led multinational brigade headquarters in planning, coordinating and carrying out a crisis response operation in a fictitious environment, through a computer assisted, command post exercise.

The opening ceremony of the exercise took place at Vaziani Military Base. The ten-day training will also be participated by 13 NATO member and two NATO partner states.

At the opening ceremony, it was noted that this is the first time in Georgia-NATO relations, the exercise will be led by Georgia’s General Staff.

The training will last from November 10 to November 20 and it is the first NATO-Georgia joint multinational brigade-level, Computer Assisted, Command Post exercise (CAX/CPX), which is included in NATO exercises list.

According to Georgia’s Ministry of Defense (MoD), the exercise is testing the interoperability of Georgian, Allied and Partner Forces, as well as command and control capabilities. This is the second NATO-Georgia exercise to take place through the SNGP (substantial NATO-Georgia Package) framework - a series of 13 defense capacity building measures agreed between Georgia and NATO at the Wales summit in 2014. 

The MoD said that Humanitarian bodies like the inter-governmental organization, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), “Save the Children” and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) would also participate in the event.

“This is the first NATO-Georgia joint multinational brigade-level, Computer Assisted, Command Post exercise, implemented by Georgia’s Armed Forces with NATO,” Vladislav Yung, NATO Joint Training Center Deputy stated at the opening ceremony.

By Thea Morrison