Thread: Bush Pushes NATO Membership for Ukraine, Georgia

Bush Pushes NATO Membership for Ukraine, Georgia

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 1, 2008; 9:25 AM

KIEV, Ukraine, April 1 -- President Bush championed expansion of NATO further into the former Soviet Union on Tuesday and declared that Russia "will not have a veto" over the alliance's decision this week about whether to put Ukraine and Georgia on a path to membership.

Appearing alongside President Viktor Yushchenko, Bush portrayed NATO membership for the two former Soviet republics as part of a new security architecture for Europe and not a threat to Moscow, which has threatened to target missiles against its former territories if they join. Bush rejected Russian suggestions that he soft-pedal the issue in exchange for a deal on missile defense or Afghanistan.

"I strongly believe that Ukraine and Georgia should be given MAPs," he said, referring to "membership action plans," a process for NATO candidates. "And there's no tradeoffs. Period. And I told that to President Putin." Recounting a recent telephone conversation, Bush said he told Russia's Vladimir Putin: "You shouldn't fear that, Mr. President. After all, NATO is an organization that is peaceful."

But the issue is highly sensitive for the Kremlin, which over the past decade has watched with increasing irritation as a Western alliance formed to oppose it during the Cold War has reached closer and closer to its borders. Over the past decade, NATO first admitted several Eastern European nations that were once satellites of Moscow and then, six years ago, gave membership to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the three Baltic states that were part of the Soviet Union until its breakup in 1991.

Ukraine, in particular, has historically been a much more central part of the Russian sense of empire, which is why both nations consider this a critical moment in their mutual history. Yushchenko, the Western-oriented banker who was elected president after leading the Orange Revolution that toppled a pro-Russian government in late 2004, stressed that Ukraine needs NATO to ensure its final break from Moscow.

"In the last 80 years, Ukraine declared its independence six times, and five times it failed," he said at a joint appearance with Bush. But Yushchenko added that NATO membership for Ukraine should not be viewed as a threat to Moscow. "This is not a policy against somebody. We're taking care of our national interest."

Yet Ukraine remains a country fractured between its Russian-influenced eastern regions and its European-oriented western areas, and the idea of NATO membership has divided its people. A February poll found that 50 percent of Ukrainians oppose joining the 26-nation alliance compared with 24 percent in favor, nearly the reverse of public sentiment before the Orange Revolution, a sign of the souring political environment since those heady days of street protests. But proponents take heart from the fact that opposition has fallen by 10 percentage points since last year.

"We're leading the protest to demonstrate to the world and to Ukraine that not everybody is happy about the idea of joining NATO," Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz, a former parliament speaker, said in an interview. "The NATO issue creates a big problem for us with Russia. That's the main worry."

Bush landed here Monday night as thousands of Communist protesters waving red hammer-and-sickle flags gathered in Independence Square, site of the Orange Revolution demonstrators. "Yankee Go Home," read one sign. "NATO Hands Off Ukraine," read another. A hand-painted banner unfurled around the square used a four-letter obscenity to describe what should be done to both Bush and NATO.

This is the president's first stop of a week-long European trip centered on reorganizing European security before he leaves office. Ukrainian officials have hailed his visit as a validation of their progress in settling the political turmoil that followed the Orange Revolution and in building enduring institutions. After meeting with Yushchenko, Bush also met with populist Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Yushchenko's revolutionary ally and post-revolutionary rival.

After touring a church, school and memorial, Bush plans to fly Tuesday afternoon to Bucharest, Romania, for a three-day NATO summit this week to consider expansion. The alliance is poised to offer membership to Croatia, Albania and Macedonia, but it is at loggerheads over Ukraine and Georgia.

The membership action plans that Ukraine and Georgia are seeking from this summit would put them on a path toward membership but would not guarantee it. Advocates say the process forces applicants to meet NATO standards in terms of democratic institutions and military capabilities, a sometimes long and challenging ordeal. Albania, for example, has been in the membership action plan process for nine years leading to its expected invitation this week to finally join.

Although Canada and nine NATO members in Eastern Europe also support road maps for the two aspirants, Germany and others say they are not ready, especially given Ukraine's internal divisions and Georgia's struggles with two breakaway republics. The opposition from Russia, which provides a quarter of Europe's gas and oil, looms large over the debate. Because NATO operates by consensus, any opposition at Bucharest would doom Ukraine's and Georgia's chances.

Russia warned again Monday that even negotiations for membership for Ukraine and Georgia would cross a "red line." Putin plans to go to Bucharest to stand against it. "We are not a source of threats," Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told foreign journalists in a conference call. But "membership to NATO will in no way contribute to stability in the country. To the contrary, it will lead to additional tension."

Putin advisers have suggested Russia would help NATO in Afghanistan by allowing planes to cross Russian airspace if Georgia and Ukraine are not put on the membership path. "We are ready to cooperate," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the newspaper Izvestia. "But we shall speak out firmly against any tendencies that are damaging our interests."

Bush, who is scheduled to travel to Russia after the NATO summit for a final meeting with Putin before the Kremlin chief steps down as president on May 7, tried to smooth the issue by noting their eight-year friendship. "I like him," Bush said. "He's a person who has been a strong leader for Russia."

But he said he has talked with other NATO allies who assured him that "Russia will not have a veto over what happens at Bucharest" and he promised "to work as hard as I can" on behalf of Ukraine and Georgia, statements that cheered his hosts.

"We feel a gap in our security because all of our neighbors, to east and west, are in some sort of security arrangement," Oleksandr Chalyi, Yushchenko's foreign policy adviser, said in an interview, referring to NATO and Russian-led alliances. "Only we participate in neither. We don't want to return back to the Russian security system." If NATO rebuffs Ukraine, he added, it would mean "the last page of the Cold War is not turned."

Correspondent Peter Finn contributed to this report from Moscow.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00995.html

Video at the Link provided

Bush Pushes Ukraine's Membership in NATO

President Bush met with Ukranian President Viktor Yushchenko to expres the "full support" of the United States for the Ukraine's push toward joining NATO.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00995.html

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