No preferential treatment for Ukraine in its process of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), indicated the American president, Joe Biden, and this despite the Russian invasion. Asked by reporters whether the United States would make it “easier” for Kiev to join the Atlantic Alliance, Biden said “no”, saying Ukraine should “meet all the criteria “. “So we’re not going to make it easy. »
Joe Biden has also called the deployment of the first Russian nuclear warheads in Belarus “totally irresponsible”. This deployment is the result of an agreement announced in March between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who lent his country’s territory to Russia to attack Ukraine.
Biden’s remarks come ahead of NATO’s next annual summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, which will be held on July 11-12. Ukraine will not be invited to join the Alliance at this summit, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg already said on Friday, although he stressed that Ukraine would become “a member of NATO at one point “. The invitation is the first step in the membership process.
The Alliance still wants to hold the first meeting of the new NATO-Ukraine council with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the summit. The Atlantic Alliance recently welcomed Finland, which officially became its 31st member on April 4.
Sweden has not yet obtained the necessary green lights from two members, Turkey and Hungary, and remains at NATO’s doorstep for the time being. After decades of neutrality, then military non-alignment since the end of the Cold War, the two Nordic countries announced their candidacy for NATO last May, as a direct result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. and Moscow’s demand to freeze any eastward expansion of the alliance.
