The State Interdepartmental Commission for Ukraine-NATO Cooperation has approved the plan of basic cooperation between this country and the alliance in the second half of 2002. Interfax-Ukraine quotes the National Security and Defense Council press service as saying that the commission discussed the way Ukraine’s executive bodies have fulfilled the NSDC decision of May 23 on intensifying the Ukraine- NATO relationship and examined the results of the visit of NATO Secretary General George Robertson to Ukraine on July 8-10. The State Interdepartmental Commission also discussed fulfillment of the Program of Ukraine-NATO Cooperation in 2001-2004 in the areas scheduled for the first six months of 2002. The commission (Yevhen Marchuk, chairman and NSDC secretary; People’s Deputies Dmytro Tabachnyk and Heorhy Kriuchkov, chairmen of the parliamentary committees for foreign affairs and national security, respectively) concluded that the executive bodies should speed up further work toward a deeper relationship with NATO.
