week period in August killed 16 Georgian soldiers before Tbilisi withdrew its forces and handed peacekeepers control of strategic heights. The unresolved status of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is also holding back Georgia's stated goal of joining the NATO military alliance, with which it is already a partner. But Zhvania expressed hope Georgia could become a candidate in two to three years' time if it continued with defence reform. He said Georgia's new government had broken the back of institutionalised corruption, paid pension arrears and put in place economic reforms that have won the praise of the International Monetary Fund. "People within Georgia say to me that there is still corruption in the lower levels of bureaucracy, and it will take more time. But there have been dramatic changes and nobody can speak of corruption as a systemic problem any longer," he said. --More 2016 Local Time 1716 GMT
