Q Sorry, but the question was not about the hostilities of last month. The question is about NATO criteria. You say that both countries have met the criteria. But unless I'm mistaken, the criteria say that there should not be internal conflicts in the territory of NATO members. Actually, that was the big reason why, for instance, Hungary and Romania were settling their own internal -- and it was promoted by the White House at that point as an example of how beneficial NATO is.

MS. PERINO: Look, I'm not a NATO expert, and I'll refer you to those who are, Andre. But I can tell you that there were plenty of NATO experts there in Bucharest in April of 2008. And if that would have been an issue that would have prohibited them from moving forward on this meeting in December of 2008, I think that would have been voiced then by those people. If you -- this dispute in regards to South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the ones that have been zones of frozen conflict that Secretary Rice has talked about, that was well-known going into the April 2008 conference. That hasn't changed. That's been that way since 1992. And so I don't think that's going to change our support for Ukraine and Georgia being given access to NATO so that they can see if they meet the requirements after you get MAP status.

seen at 09:00, 4 September in Whitehouse Press Briefings. Email this to a friend.
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