Ukraine’s cooperation with its closest neighboring countries is no less important than with other powerful countries, in particular, the Normandy Four countries, the US, Canada, said Polish Ambassador to Ukraine Bartosz Cichocki, who had previously proposed to create a new diplomatic format with the participation of the ambassadors of the Baltic group and Romania.
“First of all, perhaps, the initiative is an exaggerated notion. I simply welcomed the initiative of Minister Dmytro Kuleba and the Prism center to draw attention to Ukraine’s cooperation with its neighbors, with the nearest region. It seems to me that this region is no less important for Ukraine than relations with the powerful countries of the Normandy Four, the United States, Canada, and others,” Cichocki told Interfax-Ukraine in Kyiv on September 21.
He noted that the initiative to implement this idea should come from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.
“I expressed the idea that if other formats exist and work very effectively, in particular the G7, it would be no less effective if we also worked with the regional format. But this was more an opinion, a proposal than some kind of formal initiative. Here the initiative remains with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine – how to implement this concept of approaching the region,” the diplomat explained.
Cichocki believes that the countries in the region need to be more consolidated, as they face common threats.
“This is an unofficial initiative, therefore it would not be very correct to make a list of these countries. It is clear that Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Visegrad countries (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary), Romania are directly here, they also feel these threats facing Ukraine, from Russia, connected with the internal crisis in Belarus, with Covid, with what happened in Afghanistan. For us, the consequences of the construction of Nord Stream 2 also create a challenge,” the ambassador said.
“That is, we have a common path historically and today. It seems to me that a lot unites us, we are not the largest in terms of territory, economy, countries in Europe, that is, we need to be more consolidated,” he summed up.
