Ukraine to join Nato?

Aljazeera.net, Qatar
Tuesday 05 April 2005, 3:57 Makka Time, 0:57 GMT

US President George Bush has said he supports the idea of Ukraine
becoming a member of Nato, but said the eastern European state still
had not met the requirements to enter.

Speaking at White House news conference with Ukrainian President
Viktor Yushchenko, Bush said membership in Nato “is not a given”.

“In other words, there are things that the Ukrainian government must
do in order to satisfy the requirements to be considered for Nato.”

Ukraine’s hopes of joining the alliance soon are hurt by the state
of its military, which is seen as underfunded and at times incompetent.

Nato members are also wary of antagonising Russia, which could fear
losing its naval base in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol.

Bush noted that Ukraine also wants to join the European Union and
said “you don’t have to choose between the EU and friendship with
the United States”.

Yushchenko said his country was looking forward to US support in
accession to European and Euro-Atlantic security alliances.

Anti-Nato alliance?

Meanwhile, senior officials from three splinter territories in old
Soviet Union countries said on Monday they were ready for closer
military cooperation in the face of pro-Western revolutions in Ukraine
and Georgia.

“The revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine have created a new geopolitical
situation,” said Valeri Litskaya, external relations chief for
Moldova’s Russian-speaking separatist republic of Transdniestr.

Litskaya said he feared “growing pressure” on the secessionist
republics by Georgia and Moldova, which form part of a regional
association that also includes Ukraine and Azerbaijan.

“We have common interests, common threats and a historic common
destiny that pushes us to come together and unite,” said Sergei Chamba,
external affairs head of Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia.

Russian enclaves unite

Litskaya said a meeting of leaders from the breakway territories and
from the Armenian enclave of Nagorno Karabakh would meet in Abkhazia’s
main city of Sukhumi later this month.

Chamba said that in preparing for the meeting, “we discussed the
possibility of cooperating in the military domain”.

The president of Georgia’s separatist region of South Ossetia, Dmitri
Medoyev, said that if his region is attacked, it would count in support
from “brother peoples” in North Ossetia, Transdniestr and Abkhazia.

AFP