BRUSSELS – NATO foreign ministers will gather in Oslo this week to try to bridge differences over Ukraine’s membership request, with allies at odds over proposals to award Kyiv a road map to admittance at their July summit.
NATO has refused Ukraine’s bid for fast-track membership because Western governments such as the United States and Germany are leery of measures that could push the alliance closer to war with Russia.
However, both Kiev and some of its closest friends in Eastern Europe have been pressing NATO to take real actions to move Ukraine closer to membership at the alliance’s July 11-12 summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.
“It would be very sad if anyone read the outcome of the Vilnius summit as a Russian victory in preventing Ukraine from joining NATO one day,” Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte said on Friday.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg stated last week that Ukraine will be unable to join the alliance as long as the war with Russia continues.
“Becoming a member during a war is not on the agenda,” he explained. “The issue is what happens when the war ends.”
NATO agreed in 2008 in Bucharest that Ukraine will eventually join.
However, leaders have since refrained from taking steps such as providing Kyiv with a membership action plan with a schedule for bringing the country closer to NATO.
Foreign ministers are scheduled to discuss the search for a new NATO chief on the sidelines of their summit in Oslo on Wednesday and Thursday, with Stoltenberg set to step down in September.
Meanwhile, President Tayyip Erdogan’s election triumph in Turkiye has given new impetus to efforts to break the standoff over Sweden’s NATO membership, which has been stymied by concerns from Turkiye and Hungary.
However, progress in Oslo is doubtful because Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu will not be present, according to Sweden, however talks between him and Sweden’s Tobias Billstrom will take place “soon.”
Source: Reuters
