NATO ministers to discuss support for Ukraine, its aspirations for Alliance membership in Oslo

WORLD  01 June 2023 - 13:22

NATO foreign ministers will discuss Ukraine's desire to join the Alliance and its further support in the war with the Russian Federation at a meeting in Oslo on 1 June.

Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance Jens Stoltenberg, arriving at the meeting in Oslo, as reported by European Pravda.

"We will discuss how to strengthen and maintain our support for Ukraine. In recent months, NATO allies have provided an unprecedented level of support to Ukraine, helping them to retake and return Ukrainian territories," Stoltenberg said.

The ministers will also discuss Ukraine's aspirations for NATO membership, he added.

"All allies agree that NATO's door is open to new members. All allies also agreed that Ukraine will become an Alliance member. All allies agree that it is up to NATO members and Ukraine to decide when Ukraine will become a member. Moscow cannot have a veto on NATO expansion," the secretary-general said.

At the same time, he emphasised that all NATO allies agreed that the most important and urgent task now is to ensure that Ukraine wins as a sovereign independent state.

"President Putin, Russia should not win this war," Stoltenberg said.

He added, "we must make sure that history will not repeat, that this pattern of Russian aggression against Ukraine will really stop" when the war ends. "Therefore, we must implement the framework to provide security guarantees for Ukraine after the end of the war," said the secretary-general.

Earlier, Anniken Huitfeldt, Norwegian Foreign Minister,  said that NATO countries would not allow Russia to decide when Ukraine can join the Alliance.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has once again said that granting NATO membership to Ukraine during the full-scale war with Russia is not realistic.

Caliber.Az