Georgian soldiers from the 4th infantry brigade and the U.S. Marines will start two-week long joint military exercises in the Vaziani military base outside Tbilisi on Saturday, according to the U.S. embassy in Tbilisi.

Agile Spirit 2012, which is scheduled for March 10-24, will be the second in series of such drills, which has become an annual military exercise supplementing other military trainings such as preparing Georgian soldiers by the U.S. Marine Corps for deployment in Afghanistan.

“The focus of the exercise, which will involve more than 300 Marines from the Marine Corps’ Black Sea Rotational Force 12 based in Constanta, Romania, and the Georgian Armed Forces, is to increase interoperability between the forces and exchange and enhance each other’s capacity in counterinsurgency and peacekeeping operations, including small unit tactics, convoy operations, and counter-Improvised Explosive Device training,” the U.S. embassy said.

The first joint drills from Agile Spirit exercises took place in the Vaziani base last July in which 350 U.S. Marines participated.