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US never wished to see Ukraine in NATO — Ukrainian MP

Sergey Rakhmanin recalled that Washington's representatives repeatedly told Kiev back in the 1990s that Ukraine’s admission to the alliance was not on the agenda

MOSCOW, August 28. /TASS/. The US has never had or has any wish to let Ukraine join NATO, a member of the Verkhovna Rada’s Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence, Sergey Rakhmanin, has said.

He recalled that Washington's representatives repeatedly told Kiev back in the 1990s that Ukraine’s admission to the alliance was not on the agenda.

"Before we even thought about it [NATO and EU membership in exchange for Ukraine's renunciation of nuclear weapons], our American friends told us that no matter how our relations might develop in the future, Ukraine's integration into NATO, the deployment of US bases on its territory or the possibility of putting Ukraine under the US nuclear umbrella were off the table. This has been mentioned many times," Rakhmanin said in an interview with the RBC-Ukraine news agency.

He remarked that that some US officials told the Kiev leadership straightforwardly they were reluctant to ever to see Ukraine a member of NATO. In particular, Rakhmanin mentioned several senior members of the administration of the then US president, Bill Clinton (1993-2001): the Secretary of Defense Les Aspin, Secretary of State Warren Christopher and his deputy Strobe Talbott.

"The latter [Talbott] was the main contact for our government, because we [Ukraine] were still too small a country to communicate with presidents or vice-presidents," Rakhmanin emphasized.

"Even now, let's be honest, they do not see us in NATO," he concluded.

In April 2008, at the NATO summit in Bucharest, the alliance promised Ukraine and Georgia that both might become its members someday. Nor were there any specifics about the chances of Ukraine being admitted to the alliance in the NATO declaration adopted in Vilnius.

The alliance's Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said ahead of the July 9-11 NATO summit in Washington that there was no unanimity regarding Ukraine's admission to the alliance. For now, it was only a question of bringing Kiev closer to the alliance, he said. However, in the final document Ukraine was promised it was on an "irreversible path" to NATO membership.

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