Stoltenberg: There is no guarantee for Ukraine’s membership in NATO
report Mehr News Agency quoted by Reuters, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, repeating the previous claim about the condition of Ukraine joining this military alliance led by the US, said that there is no guarantee that Kiev within 10 years to join NATO in the future.
Stoltenberg, who will leave his post on October 1 and hand it over to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, explained in an interview with CBS News why he hopes to Ukraine should become a member of NATO by 2034 instead of the next three years.
He said about this: No one talked about exactly 10 years because it is obvious how sensitive the issue of Ukraine’s accession is. Ukraine is currently a country at war.
Stoltenberg added: “The most important issue for NATO right now is to increase support for Ukraine and ensure that this country wins.” This is a prerequisite for possible membership of Ukraine in NATO.
The Secretary General of NATO in an interview last week expressed hope that Kiev will join NATO within the next decade. The comments came after Kyiv’s NATO ambassador Natalya Galibarenko told Politico that Ukraine wanted an “irreversible” offer of final NATO membership during the alliance’s upcoming summit in Washington. This summit will be held from July 9 to 11.
NATO members initially agreed to Ukraine joining in 2008, but no timetable was given. After the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev, Ukraine devoted itself fully to its goal of joining NATO. This country applied for NATO membership in the fall of 2022, after four regions of the country agreed to join Russia with the majority of votes.
However, NATO officials have repeatedly said that Ukraine’s membership in the alliance is not possible as long as the country is at war with Russia. Moscow considers the expansion of NATO towards its borders an existential threat against it. Russian President Vladimir Putin has emphasized that Ukraine’s desire to join NATO was one of the main reasons for the start of military operations in this country, and he called Kiev’s neutrality one of the preconditions for establishing peace with its ambitious neighbor.
