As the NATO summit in Lithuania wraps up, analysts say its declaration has fallen short and dashed Kyiv’s hopes.
When Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda outlined his expectations ahead of this year’s NATO summit, he said he wanted the event to be remembered as the “summit of decisions – not just declarations”.
After two days of intense discussions and bilateral negotiations in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, leaders of the world’s largest military alliance made some big decisions, ranging from backing Sweden’s NATO membership to pledging security guarantees for war-torn Ukraine.
But when it came to the question of Ukraine’s NATO membership, they decided it was not the right moment for an invite.
“We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met,” NATO leaders said in a declaration. “We reaffirm the commitment we made at the 2008 Summit in Bucharest that Ukraine will become a member of NATO, and today we recognise that Ukraine’s path to full Euro-Atlantic integration has moved beyond the need for the Membership Action Plan.”
According to Bruno Lete, security and defence expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) in Brussels, while the declaration expresses strong and continued support for Ukraine, “NATO remains vague about the issue.”
“NATO is clearly deepening its relations with Kyiv, but regarding membership, the Vilnius Declaration gives little more reason for enthusiasm than the 2008 Bucharest Declaration did,” he told Al Jazeera.
“It positions NATO in such a way where in the future the alliance can choose to give Ukraine membership, or if necessary use Ukraine’s membership as a bargaining chip vis-à-vis Russia,” he said, noting that this would leave Kyiv disappointed.
While there has been broad consensus among NATO members about supporting Ukraine militarily at the NATO summit, the issue of setting a timeline for Kyiv’s membership remains divisive.
Some nations, including the US and Germany, have been wary that allowing Kyiv into the military alliance amid a war would also drag NATO into the battlefield with Russia — an outcome they want to avoid.
Meanwhile, eastern European nations and Poland, which have been among Ukraine’s most vocal supporters, continued to push for Kyiv’s membership.
Before he arrived at the summit on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said NATO’s stance on Kyiv’s membership was “absurd” in a rare public show of anger towards the alliance.
Source : aljazeera
