No third nation can veto Ukraine’s want to be a part of NATO, the Pentagon chief has stated. His assertion comes after Moscow warned Kiev that becoming a member of the bloc would transcend “red lines” and will immediate Russia to “take active measures.”
Ukraine is free to resolve its future and international coverage, with no international entity having a say in its aspiration to hitch the NATO alliance, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stated Tuesday.
“Ukraine… has a right to decide its own future foreign policy and we expect that they will be able to do that without any outside interference,” Austin stated at a joint press convention together with his Ukrainian counterpart Andrey Taran in Kiev.
No third nation has a veto over NATO’s membership selections.
The assertion apparently got here in response to a harsh warning in opposition to Ukraine ever becoming a member of NATO, voiced by Moscow a day earlier. Speaking to French journalists for a program known as ‘Vladimir Putin: Master of the Game,’ the Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that Kiev’s accession to NATO can be “the worst-case scenario.”
“This is a scenario that goes beyond the red lines of Russia’s national interests. This is a scenario that could force Russia to take active measures to ensure its own security,” he careworn. Peskov didn’t elaborate how far such “active measures” could go.
By throwing his weight behind Kiev’s NATO bid whereas on a go to to the nation, Austin is “playing politics,” and whereas his comment is likely to be for Ukraine’s home consumption it dangers ratcheting up tensions “at a time when that’s the last thing either Russia or NATO need,” former US Marine Corps Intelligence Officer Scott Ritter informed RT.
Ritter famous that till now “there has been a hesitancy on part of both the United States and NATO to encourage Ukraine joining NATO because of the ramifications” that each Kiev and NATO could face within the aftermath.
Since Ukraine can not win a hypothetical “shooting war” with Russia, and the US “is not in the position to come to their aid,” any potential showdown can spell doom for the army alliance, Ritter argued.
“NATO will face defeat and this could be the end of NATO. I don’t know if NATO can take another defeat, another embarrassment like they had in Afghanistan,” he stated.
Russia isn’t the one “third country” opposing Ukraine’s NATO aspirations, with no unity on the problem current inside the bloc itself both. Hungary, as an example, has been actively opposing bot Ukraine’s NATO and its EU aspirations, calling Kiev out over an absence of “democratic standards” in addition to alleged persecution of an ethnic Hungarian minority living within the west of the nation.
“In order to have a conversation on the issue [of joining NATO], any country has to achieve democratic standards, and Ukraine has not yet done so,” Hungary’s Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó stated again in September. Until these points had been sorted out, it might be “very difficult” to even focus on Kiev’s NATO aspirations, he careworn.
Ukraine has been actively courting NATO for probably the most a part of its unbiased historical past following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Kiev authorities received particularly cozy with the North Atlantic alliance after the 2014 Maidan coup, that resulted in Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovich’s ouster and prompted the years-long battle within the east of the nation.
The low-intensity combating, nonetheless persevering with between Ukrainian authorities troops and the self-proclaimed Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk, was introduced up by the Pentagon boss throughout the press convention as effectively. Austin squarely blamed the battle on Russia, successfully repeating the speaking factors generally utilized by Washington hawks and Kiev authorities.
“Let’s be clear, that Russia started this war and Russia is the obstacle to a peaceful resolution,” Austin stated. “So we again call on Russia to end its occupation of Crimea, to stop perpetuating the war in eastern Ukraine, to end its destabilizing activities in the Black Sea and along Ukraine’s borders, and to halt its persistent cyber attacks and other malign activities against the United States and our allies and partners.”
Such stance successfully makes any dialogue on Ukraine between the US and Moscow unimaginable. Russia has repeatedly denied partaking within the conflict in japanese Ukraine, mentioning that it is an inside battle, triggered by the Maidan occasions.
Moscow additionally repeatedly rejected any chance of speaking about Crimea, stating that the nation doesn’t negotiate its territorial integrity with anyone. The Crimean peninsula broke away from Ukraine after the 2014 Kiev coup, subsequently becoming a member of Russia via a referendum.
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