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Ukraine-NATO assembly: Current conflict sets the agenda

NATO Parliamentary Assembly Chairman Hugh Bayley said Ukraine had opted for a European model of development

KIEV, February 10. /ITAR-TASS/. The program of cooperation between Ukraine and NATO is “a transformation instrument concerning not military but civil aspects, including Ukraine’s internal affairs”, Ukrainian Parliament’s Deputy Speaker Ruslan Koshulinsky told a Ukraine-NATO and NATO Parliamentary Assembly meeting on Monday.

The forum was taking place “at a very important point in the history of Ukraine, which international attention is now riveted to”, said Koshulinsky.

It was “the current political situation in Ukraine that determined priorities on the agenda," he said. "The annual program was a basic institutional instrument regulating different aspects of Ukraine-NATO interaction and co-operation, namely strengthening democratic institutions, free and honest elections, protection of rights and freedoms, freedom of speech, fighting corruption and financial crimes - issues “now in the spotlight in Ukraine”, Koshulinsky added.

NATO Parliamentary Assembly Chairman Hugh Bayley said Ukraine had opted for a European model of development. This implied a choice in favor of freedom of assembly and speech, democracy, honest elections, equal rights and opportunities on the one hand and unacceptability of corruption and selective justice on the other.

The assembly supported dialogue between political forces as its absence led to confrontation and enmity, Bayley added, expressing concern about political affairs in Ukraine and calling on all sides of the conflict to renew peaceful discussion of the country’s future.

For this purpose, the chairman planned to meet proxies of parliamentary factions and the government, ambassadors of NATO members, the public and the media.

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