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Zelensky asked NATO chief when Ukraine will be member state, got no answer — minister

At the same time, the Ukrainian side was assured that "the discussion about when and how Ukraine will become a NATO member should take place exclusively between Ukraine and the alliance," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said

KIEV, December 16. /TASS/. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky didn’t get an answer in his meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg when the country will become a member of the alliance, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said on Thursday.

Zelensky held a meeting with Stoltenberg earlier on Thursday to discuss the strategy of Euro-Atlantic integration and the strengthening of Ukraine’s armed forces, Kuleba said on his Facebook page.

The meeting was "very good, positive, but the only drawback, to be honest, was that we weren’t told the year when Ukraine will become a NATO member, although we asked," he said.

At the same time, the Ukrainian side was assured that "the discussion about when and how Ukraine will become a NATO member should take place exclusively between Ukraine and the alliance," Kuleba said.

At the summit in Bucharest in April 2008, NATO adopted a political statement that Ukraine and Georgia will eventually become NATO members, but refused to provide the Membership Action Plan to both countries, which would have been the first step in the legal procedure for joining the organization. According to experts in Brussels, over the 12 years that followed, the prospect for the countries to join the alliance grew more distant. NATO does not admit states with unresolved territorial disputes because their membership can pull the entire alliance into a military conflict.

In February 2019, the Ukrainian parliament voted for amendments to the Constitution asserting the country’s NATO aspirations as an "irreversible Euro-Atlantic course." Currently, Kiev has the status of NATO’s enhanced opportunities partner.

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Ukraine NATO Vladimir Zelensky

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