News

On 16-17 June, the North Atlantic Council comprised of ambassadors from NATO countries and the Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, paid an official visit to Ukraine, where it met with high-ranking Ukrainian officials and visited some regions of the country.

The delegation of the North Atlantic Council was received by President of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko, who stressed Ukraine’s determination to continue implementing the reforms which pave the way for the country’s membership in NATO.

On 16 June in Kiev, the meeting of ambassadors of the Ukraine-NATO Commission took place, in which Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Volodymyr Ogryzko and Defence Minister of Ukraine Yury Ekhanurov participated.

The Ukraine-NATO Commission stressed once again the decision that was made during the NATO’s Bucharest summit on Ukraine’s future NATO membership. In Bucharest it was decided that NATO and Ukraine start a stage of active cooperation, and that offering a Membership Action Plan (MAP) to Ukraine would be another step on its path to the Alliance.

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine V.Ogryzko assured the North Atlantic Council that Ukraine would continue to seek to strengthen a political and practical dialogue with the Alliance and would direct bigger efforts to Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration. According to V.Ogryzko, priority directions remain the democratic, political, economic and legal reforms, fight against corruption, enhancing of cooperation and coordination with NATO.

Allies indicated that further strengthening of political and real NATO-Ukrainian dialogue would help Ukraine to implement democratic reforms and international obligations.

Ambassadors of NATO countries welcomed Ukraine’s efforts to inform the public about the Alliance and NATO-Ukrainian cooperation, as well as they positively assessed the recently adopted program on the information of the Ukrainian society about its Euro-Atlantic integration for the years 2008-2011.

In Ukraine, NATO ambassadors also met with Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk, politicians opposing Ukraine’s membership and visited some regions of Ukraine: Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov and Lvov.

Ambassador of Lithuania to NATO Linas Linkevičius together with other NATO ambassadors visited Dnepropetrovsk, where they discussed issues of Ukraine’s integration into the Alliance with members of academia, representatives from non-governmental organisations and media.

During those meetings, the Lithuanian ambassador highlighted that Ukraine’s membership in NATO would open up new possibilities for the defence industry of Dnepropetrovsk and would contribute to the development of the region.

The visit of NATO ambassadors and Secretary General J.H.Scheffer was organised at the invitation of Ukraine’s government.