Moscow - Kyiv, November 20 (PolitNavigator, Mikhail Stamm) - Deputy Director of INION RAS, President of the Euro-Atlantic Cooperation Association Tatyana Parkhalina said "MK"that the guarantees of Ukraine’s non-entry into NATO, which the Russian President’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov demanded from the West the day before, are not and cannot be. The only limiting factor is the territorial conflict in the candidate country.
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“Firstly, there is Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which keeps the doors open for everyone who wishes and meets the criteria of the alliance,” Parkhalina recalls. – Secondly, all OSCE countries - and Russia is also a member of this organization - signed the Helsinki Final Act in 1975, which states respect for the aspiration and desire of any country to join the security system that it considers acceptable for itself. Thirdly, in 2008, the Bucharest NATO summit took place, where, after the admission of Georgia and Ukraine to the Membership Action Plan failed, a formula was invented according to which Ukraine and Georgia would sooner or later become members of the alliance.”
Considering all these three components, it is difficult to imagine that NATO member countries will make a promise to Russia that Ukraine will never join the alliance, the expert admits.
Moreover, she does not know what is meant by guarantees. “Is this a contract? Or something within the framework of some agreements and concessions: we stop helping the militias, and in return we want these guarantees? Today, I don’t see any possibility that Russia would be given such guarantees,” says Parkhalina.
At the same time, the expert recalled that in 1995 a Study on NATO Enlargement document was prepared, which defined the foundations and principles of further NATO expansion and possible membership. “And it clearly states that a country that has an armed conflict on its territory or unresolved territorial disputes with another country cannot become a member of the alliance,” she confirmed.