Ukraine will not receive an invitation to NATO at the summit in The Hague – Lithuanian Foreign Minister

Ukraine will not receive an invitation to join NATO during the Alliance summit in The Hague, which will take place next week. This was reported by UNN referring to a statement by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, Kęstutis Budrys, quoted by Lithuanian National Radio and Television.

Details

The Minister stated that this issue is not on the agenda of the meeting, and none of the parties expects breakthrough decisions.

This issue is definitely not on the NATO agenda, and no one has formulated any expectations regarding the invitation in The Hague, nor have we heard this from the Ukrainians themselves. There is no expectation that there will be groundbreaking decisions, neither before the Washington summit nor now before the Hague summit, this is not on the agenda.

– said the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He noted that Lithuania will emphasize the importance of NATO unity, the role of the United States in deterring threats, and will also focus on Ukraine and the danger from Russia.

We will focus on Ukraine and raising the issue of a direct threat from Russia.

– the minister said before the meeting of the committees of the Lithuanian Seimas.

The politician expressed hope that Ukraine will be mentioned in the final document of the summit.

I believe that we will have a document, the summit has not yet taken place, so there will be no complete document and that we will be able to implement these tasks. I will not get ahead of myself, because there will be a lot of intensive work now.

– said Budrys.

When asked whether the declaration of the summit in The Hague regarding Ukraine will be weaker than the documents of the summits in Washington or Vilnius, he answered ambiguously.

Probably, only experts should assess what is worse, what the situation was, what the expectations were, what we had then and what we have. The situations are very different.

– said the minister.Additionally

Kęstutis Budrys also announced another topic that will be on the agenda.

Iran’s transformation into a nuclear power would be a somewhat irreversible process and would change the overall geopolitical balance in the world, so we would already have a nuclear axis consisting of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. This is a cause for concern, and it also poses corresponding challenges in the Euro-Atlantic space.

– added the minister.Reference

Ukraine applied to join NATO in September 2022 after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion.

In 2023, it was formulated that the invitation will be given after the necessary conditions are met. At the Washington summit, leaders declared their support for “Ukraine’s irreversible path to NATO membership.”

Reminder

It is expected that a meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Council will take place at the NATO summit in The Hague on June 24-25 at the level of foreign ministers. They will also discuss defense spending and a new investment plan.