DAN FRIED: GEORGIA, UKRAINE FAR AWAY FROM NATO

PanARMENIAN.Net
26.11.2008 13:24 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ NATO will probably not offer membership to Ukraine
and Georgia for years to come, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday
before an alliance meeting next week that is expected to discuss
the issue.

The Bush administration has supported putting the two former Soviet
republics on a formal path, called a Membership Action Plan, towards
joining NATO. But there is considerable European opposition, which
has grown since Georgia’s war with Russia in August.

Rather than get into a "huge debate" next week, NATO should make it
clear that Ukraine and Georgia are still welcome and the alliance
stands ready to help them become members, Assistant Secretary of
State Dan Fried said.

"I think it’s fair to predict there would be no NATO membership
offer for some years to come, just taking a look at these countries
realistically, and they wouldn’t disagree," Fried, in charge
of European and Eurasian affairs, told reporters at the State
Department. "We ought to concentrate on the areas where the alliance
is already agreed, which is that these countries will join NATO but
they have a lot of work to do and we will help them."

NATO leaders promised Ukraine and Georgia at a summit in Bucharest in
April that they would one day join the Western defense alliance but
declined to offer them the formal path towards membership because of
French and German objections.

The alliance’s foreign ministers are to review the two countries’
progress in Brussels on December 2 and 3.

Fried said there was realism in Washington and other capitals about
the work Georgia and Ukraine must do to become stable democracies
that could join the 26-nation alliance, Reuters reports.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress