NATO did not ask the Russian envoy to make any statements on its behalf, or to make forecasts on prospects of Ukraine's membership in the Alliance, Ukrainian ambassador to NATO Ihor Sahach said.
Sahach was commenting on Russian envoy Dmitry Rogozin’s statement that Ukraine’s chances of becoming a NATO member are nil.
“The Alliance’s position on Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic course was
defined at the Bucharest summit and confirmed by NATO’s anniversary
summit in Strasbourg and Kiel this year: NATO welcomes Ukraine [and
Georgia’s] NATO aspirations and it has forged agreement that these
countries will join NATO,” Sahach told Interfax in Brussels, citing the
Alliance’s official position.
In addition to this, NATO’s former Secretary General Jaap de Hoop
Scheffer and its current chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen have said on many
occasions that these decisions remain in force, he said. “Statements
like that by the Russian side cannot stop Ukraine on its chosen way,”
he said.
Such statements are “links in the chain of an anti-Ukrainian
information campaign, to be more exact an information war being waged
by Russia, and its intensity directly depends on progress in relations
between Ukraine and Brussels, he said. “The better and more intensive
relations are between Ukraine and NATO, the more active is the campaign
of opposition to Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations,” he said.
On Russia’s criticism of relations between Kyiv and NATO on the one
hand and its own intensively broadening ties with NATO on the other –
the start of military-technical cooperation was recently proclaimed,
Sahach said, “I am convinced that the better relations between Russia
and NATO, the more benefits this will bring to the whole of Europe and
European security.”
Commenting on individual Ukrainian politicians’ statements that
membership of NATO provides no guarantees against a third country’s
attack, the Ukrainian envoy said, “Ukraine will become a member of NATO
precisely to ensure that no one will venture to launch an attack.”
