NATO Entry for Ukraine and Georgia Hinges on ‘Bush’s Determination’
April 1st, 2008 by WILLIAM KERN
With Russia angry about America’s proposed missile shield and NATO in need of the Kremlin’s help in Afghanistan, will the NATO Alliance agree to admit the Ukraine and Georgia at the annual NATO Summit this week? According to Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza, NATO membership for these former Russian satellites depends on how hard President Bush wants to push the reluctant nations of old Europe, who question the wisdom of angering President Putin at this moment of global high-tension.
Jacek Pawlicki writes for Gazeta, “Diplomatic sources told Gazeta yesterday that U.S. pressure had been so strong that Germany had begun to hesitate. It’s possible Berlin will make its final position conditional on France’s stance. If Paris doesn’t say no, neither will Berlin.”
By Jacek Pawlicki
Translated By Marcin Wawrzy?czak
April 1, 2008
Poland - Gazeta Wyborcza - Original Article (Polish)
The chance that NATO will open its door to Ukraine and Georgia remains, although the door is unlikely to be opened as wide as Poland would like. At least not just yet.
What NATO offers Ukraine and Georgia at its Bucharest summit, which begins tomorrow, will be decided by the Alliance’s leaders at the last moment. As Gazeta has learned, in the communiqué now being prepared, the section concerning NATO’s future relationship with Kiev and Tbilisi has been left blank. That means that diplomats have failed to agree on a compromise formula and are leaving the last word to the politicians, who are likely to confront this most contentious issue during the opening dinner on Wednesday.
The stakes are high. If permitted to enroll in NATO’s Membership Action Plan (MAP), Ukraine and Georgia would find themselves within the Alliance’s “entrance hall,” from which no one would be able to remove them. Though joining the MAP isn’t a guarantee of membership, it gives the country the status of a candidate, with NATO then working to assist it on its way toward full membership.
“Summits have their own dynamics and in theory, anything can happen,” a senior NATO diplomat told Gazeta. “But at Alliance headquarters in Brussels, few would be willing to bet that Kiev and Tbilisi will join the MAP at this summit,” he added.
Gazeta’s sources in Warsaw and Brussels explain that the Wednesday dinner could prove quite a stormy one. Because of the differences of opinion, no alternative offer has yet been prepared for these two nations knocking at NATO’s door. Earlier, there was talk that Kiev and Tbilisi would be given the promise, subject to various conditions, of being allowed to join the Membership Action Plan at the Alliance’s anniversary summit in 2009.
Two days before the Bucharest summit, NATO remains divided on the issue, with the so called “new Europe,” led by Poland, still lobbying strongly for Ukraine and Georgia to be allowed to enroll in MAP.
In all, the pro-Kiev and Tbilisi camp include 10 countries - the nine new NATO members of East-Central European and Canada. They say that allowing Ukraine and Georgia to join the MAP would anchor them in the West, but also push the Alliance-guaranteed zone of security further East. A refusal, they believe, would be a failure of NATO’s “open door policy” and would be a consequence-fraught concession to Russia, which strongly opposes the prospect NATO membership for the two countries.
On the other side are the Germans and at least 11 other “old Europe” countries, including France, Italy and Spain. The Financial Times Deutschland has called this group the “European phalanx.” The “phalanx” argues that neither Kiev nor Tbilisi meet the MAP-entry criteria, and furthermore the Ukrainian public is deeply divided over NATO membership.
The sceptics also point out that NATO shouldn’t irritate Russia at a time when the Alliance is counting on its support in Afghanistan. German diplomats have also warned that allowing Ukraine and Georgia to join the MAP could destabilize these two countries. In Ukraine, riots could easily be provoked in the Crimea, where a majority of the population are nationalistically-minded Russians. Georgia, in turn, has to reckon with an angry reaction from separatists in Southern Osetia and Abkhazia.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the 2008 NATO Summit.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 at 4:25 am and is filed under Ukraine, Human Rights, Jacques Chirac, EU, White House, Eastern Europe, Bush Administration, Pentagon, Taliban, Cold War, Poland, Foreign Policy, Nicolas Sarkozy, Belgium, War On Terror, George W. Bush, Afghanistan, Military, Foreign Affairs, Russia, Terrorism, Foreign Politics, Democracy, Germany, France, Italy, Europe. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
