Months after Russia-Georgia military conflict, the Unites States and Georgia on Friday signed a strategic partnership agreement in Washington, vowing to deepen cooperation on defense and security.

"Georgia is a very important partner of the United States, a valued partner," said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, adding the U.S.-Georgia relationship rests "on shared values of democracy, on security, on economic prosperity."

Rice and her Georgian counterpart, Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze, signed the Charter on Strategic Partnership, which is similar to an agreement Washington has signed with Ukraine last month.

"This Charter underscores our relationship and our cooperation in defense, trade, energy security, strengthening democratic institutions, people-to-people contacts, and cultural exchanges," said the secretary.

"The United States supports and will always support Georgia's sovereignty and its territorial integrity, as well as its Euro- Atlantic aspirations and its integration into the institutions of the Euro-Atlantic," said Rice.

Signing of the strategic partnership agreement, originally scheduled on January 4 in Washington, has been postponed because Secretary Rice first has to deal with affairs related to the bloody conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

"This day is a historic day for my country," according to Georgia's Vashadze, the agreement "is something Georgian nation has been aspiring to and this is the stepping stone which will bring Georgia to Euro-Atlantic structures, to membership within NATO, and to return to family of Western and civilized nations."

Both Georgia and Ukraine are hoping to join the U.S.-led NATO, which has pledged to boost ties with the two ex-Soviet countries at its ministerial meeting last month, although it did not offer them Membership Action Plans.

Ahead of Georgia and Ukraine, the United States has signed similar strategic partnership agreements with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 1998. All of the three countries entered into the military bloc.

"The space of Georgia's integration with NATO should depend on the desire of Georgian themselves and on Georgia's ability to meet NATO standards," said Rice, adding that the United States is " committed to helping Georgia realize the aspirations of those who gathered in Tbilisi five years ago to demand peaceful change."

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili had said that with the strategic partnership agreement with the United States, Georgia will become stronger and will be able to travel the path to restoring its territorial integrity.

Russia recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both of them from Georgia, as independent states on August 26, 2008, two weeks after a five-day war with Georgia triggered by Tbilisi's attack on South Ossetia.

(Xinhua News Agency January 10, 2009)