Miliband backs Georgia for Nato

David Miliband has told the Guardian that Nato has set Georgia on the road to membership. The Foreign Secretary’s comments, during a visit to Tbilisi, are surprising since Nato secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Georgian membership had not been discussed at Tuesday’s meeting of Nato foreign secretaries. That meeting agreed only to form a Nato-Georgia commission in a show of support for the pro-Western former Soviet republic.

Meanwhile, Russia appeared to raise the stakes in the stand-off over Georgia yesterday as President Assad of Syria arrived in Moscow to seal a number of defence agreements, including the possible deployment of Russian missiles on Syrian soil and the revival of the Cold War Russian naval base at the port of Tartus.