Georgia plays down importance of NATO roadmap

LONDON (Reuters) - Georgia's foreign minister played down the importance Tuesday of being given a formal roadmap to NATO entry next week, saying the pledge the country has already won of eventually joining the alliance was key.

Diplomats say the military alliance is studying face-saving options for Ukraine and Georgia as prospects of the two ex-Soviet states securing membership plans dim before NATO foreign ministers hold talks in Brussels on December 2 and 3.

Georgian Foreign Minister Ekaterine Tkeshelashvili said it was hard to predict the outcome of the meeting but appeared to concede that Georgia may not be given a roadmap to NATO entry.

"In many ways, membership is the most important issue, which has already been decided in Bucharest," Tkeshelashvili told Reuters in an interview.

NATO leaders promised Ukraine and Georgia at a summit in Bucharest in April that they would one day join the Western defense alliance.

But they decided not to offer the two countries a formal Membership Action Plan (MAP) because of French and German objections that have only intensified since Russia invaded its neighbor in August in a dispute over the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Foreign ministers are to review the two countries' progress in Brussels. The MAP program was created in 1999 to support prospective NATO members while they make political, military and other reforms necessary to join.

"MAP is a roadmap of how you get to the point at which you become a member of the organization," Tkeshelashvili said.

But Georgia was in a different position because NATO had already decided it would become a member, she said.

"The exact way ... this process will go ahead is something there can be many ways ... the alliance can decide upon," said Tkeshelashvili, in London for talks with British officials. Washington has supported putting Georgia and Ukraine on a formal path toward possible membership of NATO. Tbilisi's drive to join the alliance has long exacerbated tensions with Moscow.

SUPPORT FROM OBAMA

Asked if Georgia could accept something less than a MAP next week, Tkeshelashvili said: "What we can't accept is something less than membership in the future. Other than that we have to have good progress (on) how we integrate our country with the alliance and that's the most important thing to have."

Georgia was confident U.S. President-elect Barack Obama supported its drive to join NATO, she said. "We have full assurance that it will be a very smooth continuation of cooperation."

Russia intervened in Georgia in August to repel a Georgian bid to retake South Ossetia from pro-Moscow separatists.

Russian forces have pulled back from buffer zones into South Ossetian territory and a 225-strong European Union mission is monitoring a fragile ceasefire.

Tkeshelashvili dismissed as "an absolute lie" a statement by Russia's top investigator Monday that Moscow had evidence that citizens from NATO member states including the United States and Turkey fought for Georgia in the five-day war.

(Reporting by Adrian Croft; Editing by Dominic Evans)