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NATO says Ukraine is on 'its irreversible path' to membership in alliance

"We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met," the final declaration of the NATO summit in Washington reads

© AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

WASHINGTON, July 11. /TASS/. Ukraine is on an "irreversible path" to joining NATO, according to the final declaration of the NATO summit in Washington.

"We fully support Ukraine’s right to choose its own security arrangements and decide its own future, free from outside interference. Ukraine’s future is in NATO," the document reads.

"We welcome the concrete progress Ukraine has made since the Vilnius Summit [in 2023] on its required democratic, economic, and security reforms. As Ukraine continues this vital work, we will continue to support it on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership," it says.

"We reaffirm that we will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met. The Summit decisions by NATO and the NATO-Ukraine Council, combined with Allies’ ongoing work, constitute a bridge to Ukraine’s membership in NATO. Allies will continue to support Ukraine’s progress on interoperability as well as additional democratic and security sector reforms, which NATO Foreign Ministers will continue to assess through the adapted Annual National Programme," the declaration says.

At the Bucharest summit in April 2008, NATO countries promised Ukraine and Georgia that they would be admitted to the alliance some time in the future. No concrete timeframes for this were set during the NATO summit in Vilnius in July 2023 either. NATO allies confined themselves only to stating that "Ukraine’s future is in NATO."

The NATO summit is running in Washington from July 9 through 11 to mark the 75th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949. NATO Secretary General Jen Stoltenberg said earlier that there is no consensus among the allies about Ukraine’s potential membership.

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