by Oksana Lyachynska
Deputies of Ukrainian Parliament applaud a vote in favour of a bill dropping Ukraine's non-align …
Ukraine’s parliament today voted to remove the country’s legislative block on forming military alliances, allowing the government to push forward with plans to accede to NATO.
Russia, which has been waging war in East Ukraine in a bid to exert influence over the country’s geopolitical direction, reacted bitterly to the news:
“It only fuels confrontation," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Russian news agency ITAR-TASS.
"It’s an illusion that adopting laws can settle the deep internal crisis in Ukraine.”
The draft law, submitted by President Petro Poroshenko, was supported by a rousing speech from Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, calling on parliamentarians to support the law to help protect Ukraine’s independence.
Passed by an overwhelming majority of 303 votes, the result was greeted by applause in the session hall. Even among the opposition, only eight deputies voted against the bill and two parliamentarians without affiliation abstained. The number of votes in favor would have been enough for an amendment to the constitution had that been necessary.
Speaking after the vote, Oleh Bereziuk, head of the parliamentary faction of Samopomich (‘Self-Help’) party, welcomed the law as ushering in a “new era of collective European security.”
Hryhoriy Nemyria, a lawmaker from Batkivshchyna party, added that Ukraine has already paid a high price for staying neutral, but the new law gives the nation all the tools it needs to change that. He was clear about the motive behind parliament’s decision to abandon its non-aligned status:
“Voting by constitutional majority to give up non-bloc status should be the first step to Ukraine’s steady integration into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,” Nemyria said.
According to the lawmaker, the next steps on this path should be taken by the government, and include the adoption of a good quality annual plan for cooperation with NATO, as well as requesting from NATO details of the activities it needs to complete to become a member of the organisation.
Agence France-Presse: 23. December 2014
Ukraine takes historic step toward NATO
By Dmitry Zaks
Here's how Ukraine parliament voted to drop nonaligned status. "Opposition bloc" aka ex-Party of Regions was against
Ukraine took a historic step toward NATO on Tuesday in a parliamentary vote that stoked Russia's anger ahead of talks on ending the ex-Soviet state's separatist war.
Lawmakers in the government-controlled chamber overwhelmingly adopted a bill dropping Ukraine's non-aligned status -- a classification given to states such as Switzerland that refuse to join military alliances and thus play no part in wars.
President Petro Poroshenko had vowed to put Ukraine under Western military protection after winning an election called in the wake of the February ouster in Kiev of a Moscow-backed president.
"Ukraine's fight for its independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty has turned into a decisive factor in our relations with the world," Poroshenko told foreign ambassadors in Kiev on Monday night.
"European and Euro-Atlantic integrations -- that is Ukraine's XX course," Poroshenko tweeted moments after the 303-8 vote.
Ukraine assumed neutrality under strong Russian pressure in 2010. It had sought NATO membership in the early post-Soviet era but -- its once-mighty army in ruins and riven by corruption -- was never viewed as a serious candidate.
Last winter's revolution in Kiev upset Russian President Vladimir Putin's plans to enlist Ukraine in a new bloc he was forging in order to counterbalance NATO and the European Union.
And Moscow had set Kiev's exclusion from all military blocs as a condition for any deal on ending the pro-Russian uprising that has killed 4,700 in the eastern Ukrainian rustbelt in the past eight months.
Putin's view of NATO as modern Russia's biggest threat has only been reinforced by this year's dramatic spike in East-West tensions over Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov demanded that Kiev "put an end to confrontation" and stop adopting "absolutely counterproductive" measures that only stoked tensions between the twos sides.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said even more bluntly that "in essence, an application for NATO membership will turn Ukraine into a potential military opponent for Russia."
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko
Medvedev warned that Ukraine's rejection of neutrality and a new Russian sanctions law that US President Barack Obama signed on Friday "will both have very negative consequences."
"And our country will have to respond to them," he wrote in a Facebook post.
Perhaps the most immediate threat will be to delicate peace talks this week in the Belarussian capital Minsk that Poroshenko announced on Monday.
Poroshenko said the deal for Kiev and rebel negotiators to meet in the presence of Russian and European envoys on Wednesday and Friday was struck during a joint call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande -- the West's top mediators on Ukraine.
Rebels non-committal
The last two rounds of Minsk consultations in September produced a truce and the outlines of a broader peace agreement that gave the two separatist regions partial self-rule for three years within a united Ukraine.
But the deals were followed by more fighting that killed at least 1,300 people. The insurgents' decision to stage their own leadership polls in violation of the Minsk rules effectively ended political talks between the two sides.
A new meeting in Minsk had been hampered by Kiev's refusal to discuss lifting last month's suspension of social security and other benefit payments to the rebel-run districts.
Ukraine's leaders suspect the money is being stolen by militias in the Russian-speaking Lugansk and Donetsk regions and used to finance their war.
Donetsk negotiator Denis Pushilin stressed that Kiev's continuing refusal to budge on the issue could still prevent talks from going ahead.
"We have no information about the date of any meeting in Minsk," Pushilin told AFP by telephone.
"We are ready to meet, or we could conduct a videoconference," said the rebel envoy.
"But only along the lines of the agenda that we discussed before," he added in reference to the suspended payments.
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