Georgian authorities opened a military college in August in the west of the country with the help of the French Defense Ministry, and French instructors have been training mountain warfare specialists there.
Under the agreement, signed by Mamuka Kudava, a Georgian deputy defense minister, and Franc Simone, head of a French Navy delegation, bilateral military cooperation will develop along three lines -- French instructors will continue working at the Georgian military college, Georgian military staff will undergo training courses in France, and they will take French language courses.
A team of 17 Georgian instructors has already passed a course on operating in summer mountain conditions, and a group of French instructors will arrive in Georgia in February to teach them how to operate in winter conditions. Another group will arrive in July 2007.
Georgia needs highly qualified specialists in mountain warfare, given that mountainous terrain covers 70% of its territory, including in the troubled breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
The two rebellious provinces proclaimed their independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Georgian contingents have formed part of the Collective Peacekeeping Forces stationed there since the end of bloody clashes in the 1990s.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who came to power on the back of the 2003 "Rose Revolution," has set the goal of joining NATO in 2008, and Georgia has already received considerable military aid from the United States.
The United States financed the Georgia Train and Equip Program (GTEP) from 2002 to 2004, creating four Coalition/NATO interoperable, light infantry battalions and a mechanized armor company.
