Conferences and Workshops

   

South Caucasus Security Forum 2015

On October 26-27, 2015 the 3rd South Caucasus Security Forum was organized by the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (GFSIS) together with the Centre for European and North Atlantic Affairs (CENAA) and the Georgian Ministry of Defence. The two-day forum was held at Holiday Inn Tbilisi.

Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Garibashvili, Minister of European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Georgia David Bakradze, Minister of Defence of Georgia Tinatin Khidasheli, Assistant to the Secretary General of NATO on Political Affairs James Appathurai, State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania Daniel Ioniţă, Vice Minister of National Defence of the Republic of Lithuania Marijus Velička and other high rank officials from the General Staff of Georgia, Atlantic Council, foreign and defense ministries of the European states, also international and local expert community from research institutes attended the forum.

The event was opened by Tinatin Khidasheli, Róbert Ondrejcsák Director of CENAA and Kakha Gogolashvili Director of EU Studies at GFSIS, followed by the keynote speech of Prime Minister of Georgia. "Integration into European and Euro-atlantic structures remains the primary goal of Georgian foreign policy", Irakli Garibashvili said. 

Day 1 was dedicated to Euro-Atlantic security issues and Georgia as a staunch aspirant on NATO’s Eastern edge. Information Warfare chaired by Mirek Tóda (Journalist, Denník N) and the NATO Partnerships before the Warsaw Summit 2016 chaired by Peter Bátor (Adviser to the President of Slovakia) were the consecutive panels of Day 1 followed by gala dinner. 

David Usupashvili, Chairman of the Parliament of Georgia delivered a morning keynote speech on day 2 panels of the conference. Agenda of day 2: hybrid warfare and implications for NATO Members/Partners (chaired by James C. O'Brien, Vice Chair, Albright Stonebridge Group), Black Sea – military balance and cooperation in the region (Michael Cecire, Associate Scholar, Foreign Policy Research Institute), changes in the Middle East – ISIS (Tengiz Pkhaladze, Adviser for Foreign Relations of the President of Georgia Giorgi Margvelashvili), Ukraine crisis – challenging Europe’s security architecture (Brooks Tigner, Jane’s Defence Weekly).

The event was closed by Q&A sessions with media.

The two-day forum included up to 50 speakers and moderators from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Ukraine, US, Germany, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia, Moldova  and the Czech Republic.

The annual South Caucasus Security Forum has become the key event for policy and decision makers, academics, think tank representatives, field experts and journalists, as well as for international organizations involved in the region to discuss the most challenging issues of the South Caucasus. The forum was supported by Visegrad Fund and NATO.