12.11.2008, 17:42
Zitat:NEWS ANALYSIS
On NATO’s Table, Ukraine and a Test of Russian Ties
WASHINGTON — When the presidents and prime ministers of every NATO nation met in Bucharest, Romania, in April, they agreed unanimously that Ukraine and Georgia, two former Soviet republics, would someday, without a doubt, enter the Western alliance.
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With 46 million people and vast agricultural and industrial resources, Ukraine is set strategically between Russia and the newer NATO members that were separate nations under Moscow’s hegemony in the Warsaw Pact. Ukraine would be the largest and most important former Soviet republic to enter the alliance. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania never had such political, economic and cultural ties to Russia itself.
That helps explain why Russia reluctantly accepted NATO membership for its former Warsaw Pact partners, and even for the Baltic states — but has drawn a line at Ukraine.
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A formal decision on offering a Membership Action Plan to Ukraine awaits an alliance meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels next month, and there is no evidence that allies wishing to slow Ukraine’s membership have altered their view. The issue will turn on politics in the United States as much as in Ukraine.
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Quelle:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/world/...2nato.html