AP, Ukraine :
Ukraine’s president signed a bill Monday dropping his nation’s nonaligned status but signaled that he will hold a referendum before seeking NATO membership.
Using a news conference to sign the legislation, which parliament had adopted last week, Petro Poroshenko vowed to reform Ukraine’s economy and military forces to meet European Union and NATO standards.
But he also said he will leave it up to Ukrainian citizens to decide in a popular vote whether to join NATO or not.
“When we are able to conform to these criteria, the people of Ukraine will make up their mind about the membership,” Poroshenko said, adding that this will likely happen in the next five to six years.
While public support for joining the alliance has swelled after Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in March and a pro-Russia insurgency in eastern Ukraine, prospects for NATO membership in the near term appear dim.
With its long-underfunded military suffering from the war with the separatists and the country’s economy in peril, Ukraine has much to overcome to achieve the stability that the alliance seeks in its members.
Ukraine’s president signed a bill Monday dropping his nation’s nonaligned status but signaled that he will hold a referendum before seeking NATO membership.
Using a news conference to sign the legislation, which parliament had adopted last week, Petro Poroshenko vowed to reform Ukraine’s economy and military forces to meet European Union and NATO standards.
But he also said he will leave it up to Ukrainian citizens to decide in a popular vote whether to join NATO or not.
“When we are able to conform to these criteria, the people of Ukraine will make up their mind about the membership,” Poroshenko said, adding that this will likely happen in the next five to six years.
While public support for joining the alliance has swelled after Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in March and a pro-Russia insurgency in eastern Ukraine, prospects for NATO membership in the near term appear dim.
With its long-underfunded military suffering from the war with the separatists and the country’s economy in peril, Ukraine has much to overcome to achieve the stability that the alliance seeks in its members.
