Page 19 - bne_np_June_9_2017

Eastern Europe
June 9, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 19
Ukrainian parliament restores country’s course for Nato membership
bne IntelliNews
The Ukrainian parliament has supported a law aimed at strengthening cooperation with Nato, with the aim of eventually becoming a member of the military alliance.
Authored by parliamentary speaker Andriy Parubi, the bill was supported by 276 lawmakers in the Verkhovna Rada on June 8 with a necessary minimum of 226 votes. The Ukrainian leadership cancelled the course for Nato membership during the rule of the pro-Russian former president Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted in 2014 – an event that set off Russia’s seizure of Crimea and its fomenting of the separatist war in the east of the country
In September 2016, President Petro Poroshenko told the Rada that attaining Nato membership remains a strategic goal for the national leadership. According to Poroshenko, Ukraine’s cooperation with Nato member countries has reached an unprecedented level, and Kyiv will continue enhancing it until the membership criteria are met in full.
A year earlier, Poroshenko said his country and Nato had never been so close before and that more than 60% of Ukrainians supported the idea
of joining the Western alliance. The main goal
of Ukraine is to make its army more efficient
and combat ready through cooperation with Nato because of the threat of a Russian invasion, he added.
Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, Ukraine's deputy prime minister responsible for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, said on June 8 that the course for joining Nato is one of the strategic tasks for Ukraine, which “suffers from Russia's aggression”.
“In addition to the ultimate goal of acquiring [Nato] membership, it will help unite civil society and government agencies around the reforming of the country according to Nato standards,” the deputy minister wrote on her Facebook page.
Any move to join Nato will enrage Russia, which has shown it is willing to use force to prevent countries in its “near abroad” joining the Western military alliance. Evidence suggests it was involved in a foiled coup attempt in Montenegro, which became the alliance’s 29th member on June 7. It has also intervened militarily in Georgia, which wants to join Nato, as well as fomenting civil strife in Nato aspirant Macedonia.