TBILISI. April 11 (Interfax-AVN) - Georgian Defense Minister Tavid Tevzadze left for a four-day working visit to Ukraine on Friday.
"David Tevzadze will meet with his Ukrainian counterpart Voldymyr Shkidchenko and Ukrainian National Security Council Secretary Yevhen Marchuk in Kyiv," the Georgian Defense Ministry press service told Interfax-Military News Agency.
Shkidchenko visited Georgia in January.
Officials of the Georgian ministry have mentioned many times that Georgia is interested in the Ukrainian aid to the establishment of an up-to-date air defense system.
Georgian ambassador to Ukraine and Moldova Grigol Katamadze earlier said that the Ukrainian-Georgian cooperation in the air defense sphere started yet in 1999, there is a long-term program that provides for restoration of the air defense system, initially to cover the Georgian capital and then the entire country.
Georgian Armed Forces Chief-of-Staff Dzhoni Pirtskhalaishvili spoke in early September last year of his country's plan to purchase anti-aircraft systems in Ukraine and deploy them along the border with Russia.
The Ukrspetsexport state-owned arms trading company said that Pirtskhalaishvili's statement was premature. Ukrspetsexport has so far received only an inquiry about the possibility of such supplies to Georgia, a competent source with the company told Interfax-AVN.
Some time later, commenting on NATO's refusal to include Georgia in the Alliance's air defense system in 2003, Pirtskhalaishvili had to admit that "the Georgian government failed to meet its obligations to make improvements in the defense sphere due to financial problems."