The working visit of the President of Georgia to the United States of America began today. The Head of State, who is currently in New York, spoke about the importance of this visit. Mikheil Saakashvili made the first comment regarding the award given to Georgia by the United Nations for successful reforms in the service sector. The country earned the world’s most prestigious award “Public Service Award” as a result of the “Public Service Hall” project. As the President noted, Georgia is leading worldwide in terms of implemented reforms related to service improvement.

“The United Nations has given Georgia its most prestigious award worldwide, which the country has earned through creating Public Service Halls and reforming the electronic tender system. This is truly the best system and we are in first place around the world in terms of Public Service Halls. It is good that the international community has seen this” – stated the President of Georgia.

Mikheil Saakashvili also focused attention on the 25^th NATO Summit, which is going to be held in Chicago on May 20-21. According to him, it bears a special significance for Georgia. As the Head of State noted, Georgia will participate in the meetings of all formats within the scope of the summit. Mikheil Saakashvili stated that the position of the alliance is extremely important for Georgia, because it is one of the most important guarantees of security for our country.

“The NATO Summit bears a special significance for us. NATO enlargement is not discussed during this summit, but this year like never before, it is important for us that the progress of Georgia towards integration in the alliance is noted during the summit. On one hand, this causes a lot of resistance on the part of the conqueror country of Georgia. On the other hand, political forces financed from Russia are going to Brussels in order to interfere in every way with the progress of our country during the summit, and to announce that the situation in Georgia has worsened. Several days ago the NATO Secretary General confirmed that recently all of the members of the alliance note with confidence that Georgia has made great progress in the integration path.  However, the integration process in NATO is one of the resisting factors for those who go against us by implementing any type of aggressive plans, and today it is one of the most important guarantors of Georgia. The fact that we are participating in the meetings in every format within the scope of the summit already means a lot – Georgia will be the representative of Eastern Europe during the meeting of these most important partners. We are also participating in the new format of aspirant countries with the states of the Balkans. This format was just formed several months ago. We are also participating in the meetings related to the ISAF program. In short, we are participating in many events and what our ill-wishers do not want will definitely be mentioned in the document – the progress of Georgia on the road to NATO. This is the merit of our internal reforms, as well as the men who are fighting on a very important front in Afghanistan in order to provide security of our country and make sure that no one will be able to implement the scenario of 2008 in Georgia this year or ever again” - stated the President of Georgia.