03.04.2010, 20.00
KIEV, April 3 (Itar-Tass) -- Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich has dismissed an inter-agency commission on the preparation of Ukraine’s accession to NATO. The president signed the relevant decree on April 2. Its text was posted on the presidential website on Saturday.
Another decree dissolved the national centre for Euro-Atlantic integration and relieved Vladimir Gorbulin from the duties of its acting chairman.
The new Ukrainian leadership has repeatedly said that the country’s accession to NATO was not on the agenda. At the same time, official Kiev plans to maintain the present level of cooperation with the alliance.
The inter-agency commission on the preparation of Ukraine’s accession to NATO and the national centre for Euro-Atlantic integration were created in 2006 under President Viktor Yushchenko.
Yanukovich had earlier confirmed that Kiev would continue all cooperation programmes with NATO and reiterated continuity of his policy in regard of NATO.
“Ukraine will fulfil all of the earlier agreements and implement partnership programmes with NATO,” he said. NATO, too, is committed to active work with the new leadership of Ukraine, Acting Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and Security Policy Robert Simmons said during his latest visit to Kiev.
NATO spokesman James Appathurai said that the alliance would support political transformations in Ukraine, help with military reform and facilitate further integration.
He also confirmed that the decision adopted at NATO’s Bucharest Summit remained in force. In April 2008, the leaders of 26 NATO member states made a political statement, in which they said that Ukraine and Georgia would become NATO members with time.
At the same time, Appathurai stressed that the issue of accession to NATO should be decided by the people of Ukraine.
Yanukovich said earlier that Ukraine’s accession to NATO was not on the current agenda.
“The question of Ukraine’s accession to NATO is not on the agenda now. We have already answered this question. Ukraine is interested to develop the collective European security system project,” Yanukovich said. “We are ready to participate in it and support [Russian] President Dmitry Medvedev’s initiative, which by the way has been supported by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. And we are ready to join in,” Yanukovich said.
However, the alliance’s Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen confirmed that the decision to admit Ukraine and Georgia to NATO remained in effect.
He said that the decision had been made in 2008 and required Ukraine and Georgia to meet certain membership criteria, which they had so far not done.
NATO will assess in December the progress reached by Ukraine and Georgia on the way towards a membership action plan (MAP).
Earlier, Ukraine had completed drafting the annual programme of cooperation with NATO and sent it to the alliance for consideration.
“This programme reflects our readiness to carry out reforms in order to meet NATO standards,” incumbent Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said.
Speaking at a meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Inter-Parliamentary Council in Kiev last spring, NATO Parliamentary Assembly Vice President Assen Agov said the Bucharest Summit had demonstrated the support of many NATO member states to the idea of admitting Ukraine to NATO.
However in order to become a NATO member, Ukraine should intensify democratic reforms, he said.
Ukrainian leaders should also convince the people that cooperation with NATO would benefit their country, Agov said.
NATO's then Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer did not say when Ukraine and Georgia might be admitted to the alliance.
He said it was not possible to answer this question because the decision would depend on the 28 NATO member states.
According to Scheffer, the NATO Council at its ministerial meeting admitted that Ukraine and Georgia would not become members of the alliance any time soon. At their meeting in Brussels in December, the NATO foreign ministers denied membership action plans (MAP) to Ukraine and Georgia.
At the NATO summit in Bucharest on April 2-4, 2008, twenty-six NATO countries refused to give the Membership Action Plan to Ukraine and Georgia. The plan is a key stage in preparations for NATO membership. Instead, the NATO leaders made a political statement, saying that Ukraine and Georgia would be admitted to the alliance with time. The stumbling block is how to interpret "with time". While Kiev, Tbilisi, Washington and all Baltic countries believe it means "several years", most West European member countries say it's not less than a decade.
Yushchenko said then that the question of Ukraine's accession to NATO would be decided in a nationwide referendum.
“The decision on NATO membership will be made in a referendum. But time has to pass so that people could learn more about the North Atlantic Alliance,” he said.
When Ukraine is invited to join the alliance, the people of Ukraine will then announced its decision in a referendum, he said.
Yushchenko said that there was no alternative to NATO membership for his country.
“Ukraine has no alternative to accession to NATO as a system of collective security,” he said, adding however that “the referendum must not be rushed”. http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=14985895&PageNum=0
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