2 hours, 46 minutes ago WASHINGTON (AFP) - Republican White House contender John McCain said Tuesday he would support Georgia's bid to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) if he is elected president in November.
"I would move forward at the right time with the application for membership in NATO by Georgia," McCain told Fox News television.
"As you know, through the NATO membership, that if a member nation is attacked, it is viewed as an attack on all," said the Arizona senator, alluding to Russia's military aggression on Georgia.
"We don't have, I think, right now, the ability to intervene in any way except in a humanitarian, economic way, and do what we can to help the Georgians," he added.
McCain, 71, also reiterated his call for Russia to be kicked out of the Group of Eight most industrialized nations.
"Russia no longer shares any of the values and principles of the G-8, so they should be excluded," he said.
Georgia's bid to join NATO has divided the alliance. During an April summit in Bucharest, NATO leaders deferred putting Georgia and Ukraine on a formal path to membership but agreed that the two former Soviet republics "will become members" at some point.
The formula was intended as a compromise between opposing positions taken by France, Germany and several other members, and the United States, which had pushed hard on behalf of Georgia and Ukraine's NATO aspirations.
It extended no security commitments, but it may have emboldened Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in his dealings with the Russians, as they stepped up pressure on Tblisi.
And it infuriated the Russians who had been given assurances that the summit would not approve a further NATO expansion into the two former Soviet republics.
To distance himself from President George W. Bush on the Georgia-Russia conflict, McCain said the US leader "probably had a higher opinion of (Russian Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin than I do."
Bush once said he that upon looking into Putin's eyes he saw "his soul" while McCain said he saw "three letters: K-- G-- B."
"Yes, I saw that," McCain said Tuesday.
Asked about his Democratic rival Barack Obama's view of the ongoing conflict in the Caucasus, McCain said he respected the Illinois senator's views, adding that he believed it "important that we act in a bipartisan fashion now.
"There's no room for partisanship now."
Obama, on vacation in Hawaii, on Tuesday read a statement blaming Russia for increasing tensions in the Caucasus.
"No matter how this conflict started, Russia has escalated it well beyond the dispute over South Ossetia and invaded another country," said Obama, 47.
"There is no possible justification for these attacks," he added.