Ivanna Klympush-Tsyntsadze, Vice Prime Minister for the European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine, has announced that the Ukrainian government plans to resume the NATO public outreach program in 2017. Ukrinform reports that she said it at a meeting with representatives of the Ukrainian community in Warsaw. Klympush-Tsyntsadze reminded the audience that this program had existed before, but “it was a deliberately pro-forma matter.” The vice premier cited as an example the show of TV films on NATO late at night, when there was nobody to watch them. The official added that donors’ funds would be spent to carry out this program.
In her words, almost a half of Ukrainians favors NATO membership, but it is emotional support in the light of defending from Russian aggression rather than a conscious choice. “It is necessary to persuade people that the Alliance is much more than a military-political bloc – it is a huge scientific, value-related, and industrial component. The current level of our cooperation with the allies and the Alliance itself is not lower than the one stipulated in the NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP),” Klympush-Tsyntsadze emphasized.
It will be recalled that the course towards Ukraine’s accession to the North Atlantic Alliance was laid as long ago as May 23, 2003, in the resolution of the National Security and Defense Council (RNBO) “On Ukraine’s Strategy towards NATO,” when RNBO was headed by Yevhen Marchuk. A year later, the main principle and provisions of national security were enshrined in the Law of Ukraine “On the Foundations of National Security.” Incidentally, the faction of the Party of Regions with Viktor Yanukovych at the head also voted for this law.
Since the day it was founded, the newspaper Den/The Day has been a consistent follower and propagandist of this country’s Euro-Atlantic course. The oligarchs who owned popular TV channels did not work at all on this matter. On the contrary, inviting such odious politicians as Kolesnichenko to TV shows, they discredited the very idea of Ukraine’s integration into NATO. We should also recall the 2008 Bucharest Summit, when German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the then French president Nicolas Sarkozy blocked the granting of the MAP to Ukraine and Georgia. As a result, Russia attacked Georgia in August of the same year and illegally occupied 20 percent of that Caucasian country’s territory. And the year before past, perhaps being aware that NATO will not react the way it did in the case of Georgia, Moscow illegally annexed Crimea, and it continues now its aggression in western Ukraine.
“WE WILL BE UKRAINE’S RELIABLE PARTNERS IN THIS INITIATIVE”
Natalia NEMYLIVSKA, director, NATO Information and Documentation Center, Ukraine:
“We welcome the news of Ukraine relaunching an information programme on NATO and NATO-Ukraine relations. There is a significant amount of cooperation between NATO and Ukraine in a variety of spheres, both military and non-military, which benefit both the Alliance and Ukraine. Ukraine, by developing a programme that will bring such information to Ukraine's various audiences in a timely, consistent and regular manner, can be only be welcomed. We will be strong partners of Ukraine in this initiative.”
