Kuleba: NATO lacks political will to decide on Ukraine's accession

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba believes that NATO currently lacks the political will to make a decision on Ukraine's accession.

He said this in an interview with CNN.

"To all those who say that Ukraine's accession is impossible, I advise you to look at the example of Finland. A year ago, it was impossible to imagine that this would happen. But now, when there was political will, Finland was accepted into NATO. So everything is possible when there is political will, everything else is secondary. But now I want to say as a fact that there is a lack of political will in the Alliance," Kuleba said.

According to him, Ukraine's membership in NATO will not stop the war, but it will help prevent wars in the Euro-Atlantic region in the future.

"As long as Ukraine remains outside of NATO as a close friend, most respected ally, a special partner or in some other surrogate form of cooperation, there will be a risk of a repeat of Russian aggression against Ukraine. That is why it is strategically prudent to eliminate this risk. Whatever the price of maintaining peace, the price of restoring peace is always higher," the minister said.

Kuleba reminded that in 2008, the allies agreed in Bucharest that Ukraine would become a NATO member, and since then, NATO has simply repeated these words as a mantra, confirming its "open door" policy.

"We have heard many arguments, many excuses why Ukraine should not be in NATO. History has proven that all these arguments were meaningless. So it's time to recognize the reality and do it," the Foreign Minister added.

Author - Olena Madiak, 25/04/2023