USS Monterey visits Georgia

20.06.2011 American Aegis-carrying USS Monterey called at Georgian port Batumi in the morning of June 20, reports Trend news agency referring to sources in Georgian frontier police.

Chairman of the Government of Adjara (Georgia) Levan Varshalomidze attended the welcome ceremony, reports Trend.

Monterrey's command held a meeting with Georgian Coast Guard officers with the view to plan coming military exercise.

The joint exercise will be conducted on June 21 in Batumi harbor by the American cruiser and Georgian Coast Guard boat P-101.

The US cruiser will stay in Georgian waters till June 23.

This is not the first visit of a US warship to Georgia in this year. On June 9 American guided missile cruiser USS Anzio (CG-68) paid a friendly visit to Batumi. Since 2001 US warships has been regularly carrying out friendly visits to ports of Poti and Batumi. In Nov 2010 the Batumi port was visited by destroyer USS Gonzalez DDG-66.

USS Monterey was dispatched to the Black Sea under the Phased Adaptive Approach program which provides shaping of European segment of global missile defense, says the US Administration.

"The core attack asset of the NATO's territorial missile defense" in the Black Sea raised many questions and indicated the US was still ignoring Russia's concerns demonstratively shaping just that missile defense configuration opposed by Moscow, said the Russian Foreign Ministry's official release.

"Such surprises at the very first phase of American 'adaptive approach' demonstrate serious strategic uncertainty in the US missile defense program. This issue brings up the logic question – to what extent vocal assurances about non-anti-Russian nature of the program can be trusted", points out Russian Foreign Ministry.