Four NATO warships arrived Friday in Georgia for joint training with the coast guard of the Caucasus nation, which is keen to join the 28-nation military bloc.

The Turkish navy's training ship Cezayirli Gazi Hasan Pasa and mine hunter TCG Edremit as well as Spanish mine hunter ESPS Tambre and Romanian mine sweeper Slt. Alexandru Axente entered Georgia's Black Sea port of Batumi for a four-day visit.

Italy's mine hunter Gaeta is to join the group later and Chief of Staff of the NATO Maritime Command, Rear Admiral Giorgio Lazio, is expected to arrive in Batumi on Saturday.

The warships will conduct a "series of exercises at sea with the Georgian coast guard, enhancing their search and rescue, boarding, and tactical maneuvering skill sets," the Allied Maritime Command said in a statement.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told journalists on Thursday that Georgia "has all the practical tools it needs to prepare itself for membership" in the alliance.

"All of these practical tools are used every day to prepare Georgia for membership and (the country) is moving closer to NATO," he added.

Georgia's bid to join NATO and the European Union infuriated its former imperial master Russia, which bitterly opposes the alliance's expansion into former Soviet republics.

The two countries fought a brief war in 2008 over Georgia's Moscow-backed separatist region of South Ossetia.

After the war, Russia recognised South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway Georgian territory, as independent states and stationed permanent military bases there.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has said that the war has prevented Georgia from joining NATO.

Ahead of the war, NATO leaders agreed at a summit in Bucharest that Georgia would one day join the alliance but did not put the country on a formal path to eventual membership.