- Sputnik International
World
Get the latest news from around the world, live coverage, off-beat stories, features and analysis.

No anti-NATO sentiments in Ukraine - first deputy FM Buteiko

Subscribe

MOSCOW, June 6 (RIA Novosti) - A senior Ukrainian diplomat said Tuesday that there was little opposition to the country's bid for NATO membership, as protests against the presence of U.S. ship continued on the Black Sea coast.

A wave of anti-NATO protests has seized the Crimea, a Ukrainian autonomous republic on the Black Sea, after a U.S. cargo vessel called at the port of Feodosia in late May ahead of an exercise, Sea Breeze-2006, with the United States. Many people assumed it was part of Kiev's bid for joining the North Atlantic alliance.

But First Deputy Foreign Minister Anton Buteiko dismissed suggestions that anti-NATO sentiments were widespread in the country, saying that only political parties that failed to leave any mark in the March 26 parliamentary elections were fermenting opposition.

"I can see no opposition to Ukraine's joining NATO," he said. "Individual groups representing certain political forces that ran in the elections under the slogan 'No NATO in Ukraine have made statements ... [but] they did not negotiate the barrier [to take up parliamentary seats], so it is incorrect to say that anti-NATO sentiments exist in Ukraine."

Natalia Vitrenko's People's Opposition party was one such movement that campaigned on a vehemently anti-NATO platform, but it failed to win the 3% of the vote needed to make it into parliament. Vitrenko severely criticized President Viktor Yushchenko in late May for allowing the U.S. ship to dock in the Crimea even though parliament prohibited earlier in the year foreign troops from taking part in exercises in Ukrainian territory.

Buteiko said the current situation in Ukraine was similar to that in the Baltic States, where 30% of people had supported NATO accession bids before the countries joined the alliance in 2004.

Stressing that NATO's accession requirements did not include provisions on holding a referendum on the issue, he said the Ukrainian parliament's ratification of a protocol to the Membership Action Plan, approved at the 1999 Washington Summit, would be enough.

"If we see that the decision has not won people's support, their opinion will be taken into account in another format stipulated in the Ukrainian Constitution," Buteiko said.

Newsfeed
0
To participate in the discussion
log in or register
loader
Chats
Заголовок открываемого материала