By Kateryna Choursina
June 3 (Bloomberg) -- Ukraine’s parliament voted to drop membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization from the country’s foreign policy goals, supporting an initiative by President Viktor Yanukovych.
Two hundred and fifty-three lawmakers in the 450-strong legislature in Kiev voted in a first reading to support a law defining Ukraine as a non-aligned country that Yanukovych submitted this week. The document says Ukraine still seeks to join the European Union.
“This is an obvious lurch towards the strategic partner in the north,” said Mykola Sunhurovskyi, head of military programs at the Kiev-based Razumkov Center for Economic and Political Research. Non-alignment means a “weakness of policy.”
Ukraine has focused on strengthening relations with Russia since Yanukovych took office in February. His predecessor, Viktor Yushchenko, had sought closer integration with Europe and wanted to lead Ukraine into the military alliance. Russia is against further eastward expansion of NATO to include former Soviet republics such as Ukraine and Georgia. The alliance decided in 2008 that the two countries would eventually become members, though it refused to fast-track their applications.
On April 26, during a visit to Kiev, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin suggested forming a nuclear energy holding company between Russia and Ukraine.
‘Turned Sharply’
Yanukovych and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met on April 21 in Kharkiv and signed accords under which Russia agreed to cut natural gas prices for Ukraine by 30 percent. In return, Ukraine will allow Russia to keep its Black Sea naval fleet in the country through 2042 after the current lease expires in 2017 and will increase the amount of gas it imports.
“Ukraine’s foreign policy course has turned sharply towards coming closer to Russia,” said Mykhaylo Chechetov, a lawmaker from Yanukovych’s Party of Regions.
The naval base agreement won’t alter NATO’s commitment to Ukrainian membership, Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on April 22.
The new document “fully disorients the executive” in terms of building a national defense and security system, Sunhurovskyi said, adding that as a non-aligned state, Ukraine will need a bigger army, a different military structure and very likely an increase in the conscription term to two or two and a half years from the current one year.
“There is no understanding in society of the consequences of abandoning NATO,” said Sunhurovskyi.
Sunhurovskyi said there has been no major change in what citizens think about NATO membership. No more than 20 percent of the population wants Ukraine to join NATO and about 60 percent is opposed, he said.
--With assistance from James Neuger in Brussels and Halia Pavliva in Kiev. Editor: Chris Kirkham
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