Georgia's location, nestled between the Black Sea, Russia, and Turkey, gives it strategic importance far beyond its size. It is developing as the gateway from the Black Sea to the Caucasus and the larger Caspian region, but also serves as a buffer between Russia and Turkey. Georgia has a long and close relationship with Russia, but it is reaching out to its other neighbors and looking to the West in search of alternatives and opportunities. It signed a partnership and cooperation agreement with the European Union, participates in the Partnership for Peace, and encourages foreign investment. France, Germany, the United Kingdom,and the United States all have embassies in Tbilisi.
Georgia is a member of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and the OSCE
Because of its strategic location it is in both the Russian and American spheres of influence.
Disputes - international: Georgia relationships with Russia are at it lowest point in modern history due to Georgian-Russian espionage controversy and due to the 2008 South Ossetia war, Georgia broke off diplomatic relations with Russia and has left the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Famous quotes containing the words foreign, relations and/or georgia:
“If you don’t know foreign languages, you don’t know anything about your own.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“Major [William] McKinley visited me. He is on a stumping tour.... I criticized the bloody-shirt course of the canvass. It seems to me to be bad “politics,” and of no use.... It is a stale issue. An increasing number of people are interested in good relations with the South.... Two ways are open to succeed in the South: 1. A division of the white voters. 2. Education of the ignorant. Bloody-shirt utterances prevent division.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“I am perhaps being a bit facetious but if some of my good Baptist brethren in Georgia had done a little preaching from the pulpit against the K.K.K. in the ‘20s, I would have a little more genuine American respect for their Christianity!”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)