German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Sunday in the Georgian capital that the ex-Soviet republic, currently mired in conflict with Russia, will join NATO. “Georgia will become a member of NATO if it wants to – and it does want to,” she said before talks with President Mikheil Saakashvili in Tbilisi. It was one of the strongest statements yet of support for Georgia's NATO membership bid, which is fiercely opposed by Russia. Merkel was in Tbilisi to support Saakashvili and press for the withdrawal of Russian troops who attacked Georgia on Aug. 8 to repulse an offensive by Georgian troops against a Moscow-backed separatist region. Russian troops remained deployed in the north and west of the country, including units within half an hour's drive of Tbilisi. Russia says that regular forces will begin withdrawing Monday but that an unspecified number of Russian peacekeepers will remain. Moscow is furious at Georgia's attempt to join NATO. The Western military alliance is divided over how fast to accept Georgia. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Sunday accused Moscow of failing to comply with a ceasefire deal in Georgia “There is a ceasefire and Russia is currently not in compliance with this ceasefire,” Rice told Fox News Sunday, urging Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to keep his side of the French-brokered deal. She added the Russians “have just this morning (Sunday) announced that their troops will begin to withdraw and withdraw fully and completely back to the lines prior to this conflict (on Monday.) “This is the promise that the Russian president has given to the French president .. I hope this time he'll keep his word.” Medvedev told his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy on Sunday that Russian regular forces “from tomorrow ... will begin withdrawing,” the Kremlin said in a statement. The French-brokered deal is meant to conclude a five-day war in which Russian forces drove off a Georgian army assault against Moscow-backed separatists in the region of South Ossetia.
