Azernews.Az

By Sabina Idayatova

The Georgian National Guard hosted a conference on final planning of the command and staff exercises 'Shared Horizons 2013'on Wednesday.

The Georgian Defense Ministry reported that the Georgian-American exercises serve for improvement of the national plan for responding to natural and man-made disasters.

Besides representatives of the Joint Staff, the conference was joined by 18 employees of various departments of Georgia. From the US side, the meeting is attended by 27 representatives of the National Guard of the State of Georgia and the European Command.

Shared Horizons 2013 is being held this year for the third time.

The strength of U.S.-Georgia relations is reflected in the U.S.-Georgia Charter on Strategic Partnership, which was signed in January 2009 in the priority areas of democracy; defense and security; economic, trade and energy issues; and people-to-people and cultural exchanges. Since the signing of the Charter, the United States and Georgia have strengthened their cooperation based on U.S. support for Georgia's territorial integrity and sovereignty, and its commitment to further democratic reform.

Georgia routinely cooperates with US military forces including under various mobile training team programs; participating in the exercises Immediate Response, Rapid Trident and Agile Spirit; through defense cooperation, strategic partnership agreements, etc.