Re: Russian Invasion Of Ukraine (Formerly: Democratic Malaise Draws Ukraine Eastwards
Elections have consequences:Originally Posted by American Patriot
Ukraine suspends membership bit to join NATO
Fri Oct 25, 2013 10:27PM
Oleksandra Molotkova, Press TV, Kiev
Fact Corner
- Ukraine has suspended its longstanding membership bid to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO. This, despite the organization’s assurance that its doors are open for new members.
The secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has said during a two-day NATO defense ministers' meeting in Brussels that Ukraine has ended its long-standing bid to join NATO.
Ukraine fundamentally changed its foreign policy strategy in 2010 when the local Parliament approved the President Viktor Fedorovych’s sponsored bill on non-participation in any military alliances. The country’s non-aligned status was one of his pre-election promises. But in spite of a certain cooldown in the relations, Ukraine-NATO cooperation is underway, in particular in a new European security architecture development and peace-support missions.
The country’s previous President believed NATO membership guaranteed safety for Ukraine would be a bridge which can help the country join the EU. The current leadership however, rejects that idea, saying the move is considered as a provocation by Moscow which has long opposed NATO’s plans to expand eastward.
NATO has not relented in its ambition to incorporate Ukraine as a full member. However, for Ukraine the decision on the matter is possible only after it is put to a national referendum. In the meantime, no action group on this has been created - what many say may be a signal Ukraine has already shelved the idea of joining NATO.
Rasmussen: NATO won't extend membership to Ukraine, Georgia
Oct. 22, 2013 at 10:29 AM
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen speaks to the media following his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, in the Oval Office at the White House on May 31, 2013 in Washington, D.C. UPI/Kevin Dietsch | License Photo
BRUSSELS, Oct. 22 (UPI) -- Ukraine and Georgia will not join NATO next year, the trans-Atlantic alliance's top official said Tuesday.NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Ukraine decided to end its long-standing bid to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization while Georgia remained interested but would not become a member in 2014, Russia's RIA Novosti news service reported.
Both countries will still have partnership action plans with the alliance and will still work together, Rasmussen said before a two-day NATO defense ministers' meeting began in Brussels.
Ukraine and Georgia, lobbying to become NATO members for years, both enjoy full support for their bids from the United States, but alliance members rejected a proposal to offer them membership in 2008, RIA Novosti said.
Russia has opposed eastward expansion by NATO, particularly when it involves former Soviet Union republics.
Rasmussen also said the alliance does not plan to create any new formal coalitions with the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a loose Eurasian military alliance based in Russia.
Officials said NATO-Russia cooperation, improving capabilities and progress in Afghanistan were the top agenda items when the alliance's defense ministers meet Tuesday and Wednesday.
The ministers also will discuss defending against cyberattacks, NATO's Ballistic Missile Defense system and review NATO reforms, NATO said on its website. Ministers also will consider the next step in the alliance's Connected Forces Initiative, focusing on NATO's training, education and exercises program after the coalition force's mission in Afghanistan ends in 2014.
A NATO-Russia Council is planned for Wednesday, officials said. Among other things, NATO ministers and Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu will discuss international security issues, including Syria.
Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-Ne...#ixzz2uvhRpQD2
U.S. Endorses NATO MAP For Georgia
February 27, 2014 - 2:14am, by Joshua Kucera
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meets with Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili in Washington on February 26. (photo: U.S. State Department)
The U.S. State Department has endorsed granting Georgia its long-coveted status as an aspiring NATO member, the Membership Action Plan, on the heels of Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili'shigh-profile trip to Washington. It's not clear whether this represents a substantive policy shift, but it is the first time in recent memory that the U.S. has explicitly come out in favor of MAP.
In response to a recent letter by 40 members of Congress urging the State Department to "advocate granting MAP to Georgia, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State of Legislative Affairs Julia Frifield wrote:
We believe Georgia deserves credit at the upcoming NATO Summit for the progress it has made and its demonstrated commitment to NATO operations and standards. We stand ready to support Georgia's own efforts to build a consensus within the Alliance for granting it a Membership Action Plan.Now, that isn't the strongest statement ever, and Secretary of State John Kerry's remarks with Gharibashvili repeated what has been the standard Washington line that "We stand by the Bucharest decision and all subsequent decisions that Georgia will become a member of NATO," adding that: "The United States will work to make sure that Georgia’s progress is acknowledged by all members of this year’s NATO Summit."
(It was the 2008 Bucharest summit, recall, where NATO declined to give Georgia MAP but instead said that Georgia and Ukraine "will become members of NATO." And we see how that worked out in Ukraine...)
Kerry also announced "additional assistance" to Georgia: “Today I am announcing additional assistance by the United States to help support Georgia’s European and Euro-Atlantic vision, specifically to help Georgia achieve visa-free travel with the EU and to mitigate the hardships caused by borderization along the occupied territories." As Civil.ge noted, "details of the 'additional assistance' were not immediately available."
But State Department officials have recently shied away from talking about MAP, and have only discussed it when asked directly by Georgian reporters.
Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Philip Gordon said in 2012, ahead of the parliamentary elections, that "the members of NATO have been watching very carefully how this plays out and their judgment as to whether the process with NATO should move forward, whether specifically on a MAP or just more generally will very much be affected on the state of democracy, and it’s one of the features of this alliance that democracy is a key criterion." And Deputy Secretary of State William Burns in 2011: "The issue of MAP, as you well know, is a decision that all the Allies in NATO have to make. We will continue to support Georgia’s aspirations to become a member of NATO, just as we support Georgia’s aspirations to integrate more fully into Euro-Atlantic institutions more generally."
As Frifield's letter suggested, the U.S. is only one member of NATO. And it was in favor of MAP in 2008, NATO works on consensus and other Georgia-skeptical NATO members, primarily in Western Europe, scuttled that plan. There's no indication that those skeptics have changed their mind on MAP for Georgia, so MAP still seems a remote prospect when NATO gets together later this year in Wales. But this nevertheless seems a significant statement from Washington. (The U.S. State Department and the U.S. embassy in Tbliisi did not respond to queries from The Bug Pit.) And it's all the more reason to believe that something substantial will happen with Georgia and NATO in Wales.
Flashback:
Russia says Georgia's entry to NATO could lead to war
Russia warns of ‘2008 war repetition’ over Georgia’s NATO entry bid
© AFP 2014/ Samuel Kubani
16:22 08/12/2011
MOSCOW, December 8 (RIA Novosti)
Tags: NATO-Russia Council, NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Sergei Lavrov, Brussels, Georgia, Russia, Moscow
Related News
Russia’s 2008 war with Georgia prevented NATO growth - Medvedev
Russia’s foreign minister has warned of a repetition of its 2008 war with Georgia if the South Caucasus state joins NATO.
Speaking at a news conference after the NATO-Russia Council in Brussels on Thursday, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he had warned NATO foreign ministers against “pushing the current Georgian regime towards a repetition of their August 2008 gamble.”
Georgia has been pursuing NATO membership but the five-day war in 2008 over Georgia’s breakaway territory of South Ossetia has made the alliance wary of taking it on.
Speaking during a visit to Georgia last month, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the country had “come a lot closer” to joining, but added that Tbilisi should pursue reforms.
“Further reforms will be Georgia’s ticket to membership and NATO is here to help,” Rasmussen told Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.
Ukraine Dragged Into NATO
Interview By Rick Rozoff
Global Research, July 20, 2012
Voice of Russia and Stop NATO 20 July 2012
Region: Russia and FSU
Theme: US NATO War Agenda
Audio: Download
In a recent interview, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has urged Ukraine to settle the issue of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and remove obstacles in relations with the alliance, in what can be viewed as yet another NATO attempt to steer Ukraine towards the integration of this former Soviet state in the US-led military bloc. Rick Rozoff, the manager of Stop NATO, believes NATO has not relented in its ambition to incorporate Ukraine into NATO ultimately as a full member.
Secretary General of NATO Rasmussen is urging Kiev to remove obstacles in relation to NATO. Can you tell us about that?
It’s NATO’s intention, and that of the United States, to bring Ukraine into NATO as a full member, which is why there’s a special NATO-Ukraine Commission that was set up roughly four years ago, three and a half years ago with the express purpose of doing that. At the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, Ukraine and Georgia had both been not given the green light if you will to join NATO as full members or to be granted what’s called a Membership Action Program, which is the final stage before full NATO accession. So a compensatory mechanism was set up, which is the commission I mentioned both for Ukraine and Georgia, and despite the change in government where Yanukovich has replaced Yushchenko as head of state of the country. NATO has not relented in its ambition to incorporate Ukraine into NATO, ultimately as a full member. So Rasmussen’s comments are in line with that policy of NATO.
And of course two military exercises in Ukraine have recently been concluded, this month, including the annual Operation Sea Breeze which is run by the United States. It’s supposedly a joint U.S.-Ukrainian military exercise, naval, in the Black Sea, not too far from the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. And included the participation, last heard for me at any rate, of 20 some odd countries, which are NATO members and NATO partner states. Given Ukraine’s location, its size, its role in the armaments industry in post Soviet space and so forth, it’s a key acquisition for NATO. It doesn’t surprise me that Rasmussen is laying down his terms to Ukraine.
They talk about human rights, the Timoshenko case, Lutsenko, what do you think about their claims?
They’re going to overrule decisions made by the parliament in Ukraine, by the president. They’re going to trample on the laws of Ukraine in order to support their clients. Yulia Timoshenko, the gas princess, in the first instance of course. The sort of diktat, almost, that’s emanating from the West in relation to Timoshenko, all but ordering the Yanukovich government to release her and so forth is a further example of the interference in the internal affairs of sovereign nations that epitomizes Western behavior. It’s not unlike what they’re doing in several other countries in the world. They want their allies, or their operatives, the former Viktor Yushchenkos and the current Yulia Timoshenkos, to be free and to operate, furthering the Western agenda in Ukraine.
Hillary Clinton keeps making statements – it’s kind of become a habit for her – towards Russia. What about her last statement? Can you comment on this?
The most recent rather may be the worst. It’s probably a new low even for Hillary Clinton and that’s saying quite a bit.
And what we’re speaking about of course is her talk at the so-called Friends of Syria meeting in Paris on July, 6th, where she stated to the representatives of ane estimated 100 nations and organizations – transparently in attempt to rally them against Russia and China for having the temerity to defend international law and as we just mentioned noninterference in the internal affairs of sovereign nations vis-Ã*-vis Syria and stated that the problem was in her estimate – and one has to watch her as she’s making these statements, waving her hand in the air and being almost hysterical. She stated that the problem was that Russia and China were not paying a price for their position in relation to Syria and that they would have to pay a price and that the so-called world community would have to ensure that they do. So, I mean, this is the crudest form of threat, intimidation, vituperation.
What do you think she meant exactly by ‘paying a price’?
It’s hard to say. Diplomatically, of course. Economically, perhaps. Maybe the U.S. and its Western allies want to do to Russia and China in relation to Syria what they’ve done to several countries including Russia and China in relation to Iran, which is to say they slap increasingly onerous sanctions on a country like Iran or Syria and then start sanctioning countries dealing with them. Something like this situation obtained in the lead-in to the war against Iraq in 2003 when the George W. Bush administration started accusing perhaps dozens of countries of selling so-called “dual-use” equipment to the government of Iraq and threatening them with, if you will, second-generation sanctions. She could have been alluding to that, economically as well as diplomatically punishing Russia and China. However, the tone and the vociferousness of what she stated suggested she was talking about something yet more, almost threatening Russia and China politically and who knows what? But it was the furthest thing removed from diplomatic language that one can imagine.
But given the fact that she’s the Secretary of State of an administration that proudly proclaims itself, and I’m using President Obama’s own words, “the world’s sole military superpower,” she evidently feels she can make statements like that with impunity and that nobody is going to hold her to account for them.
Unfortunately, the world has not.
It gets worse, I suppose, with each successive Secretary of State, but this is a new low point. She made a comparable statement in February of this year, the second time that Russia and China jointly vetoed a resolution in the United Nations Security Council aimed against Syria, where, to use her own word, she referred to Russia and China as being ‘despicable’. I think the rest of the world should take note of how the U.S. treats even major powers, the world’s second economic power, China, and one of the world’s two major military powers, Russia. If they can be referred to in such derogatory and abrasive terms then you don’t need a WikiLeaks’ revelation to understand what the U.S. thinks of the governments of other nations.
Can you tell our listeners about the recent attack on a NATO convoy to Afghanistan through Pakistan?
It’s being attributed to a Pakistani Taliban group or the Haqqani network – I’m not sure who’s being accused of having torched the 12 NATO tankers – but I would say, John, more than anything else this is indicative, I believe, of the general sentiment within Pakistan, which is not in favor – the popular sentiment – of renewing transit or NATO convoys from Pakistan into Afghanistan.
There’s overwhelming opposition to collaboration with NATO for the war in Afghanistan if for no other reason that the people in Western Pakistan, ethnic Pashtuns, don’t relish the thought of their the cousins on the other side of the border being killed by NATO helicopter gunship attacks or in other military attacks including some of the horrible atrocities that have occurred just this year, for example. And what we’re seeing again is that to accommodate NATO is to betray one’s own nation and one’s people no matter where it occurs.
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