Ukraine's NATO membership path: Allies wrangle, Kyiv sees progress
World
Ukraine's NATO membership path: Allies wrangle, Kyiv sees progress
VILNIUS (Reuters) - NATO members remained divided on Monday over how to put Ukraine on a path to membership on the eve of a summit in Lithuania, but appeared to remove one key hurdle to Kyiv joining the alliance.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said he had put forward a package that included the removal of the requirement for a Membership Action Plan (MAP) - a list of political, economic and military goals that other eastern European nations had to meet before joining the alliance.
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who is expected to attend the summit, wants a clear invitation in Vilnius to join the alliance after Russia's war on Ukraine ends, and security guarantees until that time.
NATO members in Eastern Europe, under Moscow's thumb for decades in the last century, have backed Ukraine's stance. But others, such as the United States and Germany, have been more cautious, wary of any move that they fear could draw NATO into a direct conflict with Russia, and potentially spark a global war.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted that there had been a consensus among allies to drop MAP, but added: "It is also the best moment to offer clarity on the invitation to Ukraine to become member."
Stoltenberg told a news conference there would be more meetings on Monday: "No final decision has been made but at the summit I am absolutely certain that we will have unity and a strong message on Ukraine."
President Vladimir Putin has cited NATO's expansion towards Russia's borders over the past two decades as a reason for his decision to send his armed forces into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
Assertions that "Ukraine's rightful place is in NATO" and that it will join "when conditions allow" are among the phrases being discussed, diplomats say, as they try to find wording acceptable to all NATO's 31 members.
At a summit in Bucharest in April 2008, after much wrangling, NATO declared that both Ukraine and Georgia would join the U.S.-led alliance - but gave them no plan for how to get there.
Some of Ukraine's eastern allies demand that Vilnius go beyond the 2008 declaration and want a mention of "invitation" or "invite" in the final declaration with the negotiations also focusing on what conditions to attach and how its progress should be tracked.
Diplomats were expected to negotiate late into the night in the hope of breaking the deadlock before leaders convene on Tuesday to avoid leaving it to them as they did in 2008.
