Stoltenberg on Ukraine as an Aspiring Nation to NATO

‘Ukraine will join NATO,’ Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Alliance Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview on ‘1+1’.

"All allies agreed that Ukraine would become a NATO member. Montenegro joined NATO only two years ago, Northern Macedonia will become a NATO member in a few months, and we saw this before - after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Poland, the Baltic countries - no one even in their dreams could have imagined that they could be in NATO," Stoltenberg told a ‘1+1’ correspondent.

The Secretary-General also said that the Alliance would help Kyiv to improve reforms and modernize society so that the country could join the organization.

"For some countries, partnership is the first step towards membership. But for all countries, partnership is a permanent relationship with NATO. It must be understood that there is a great distance between 'no relations' and 'full membership'," the Secretary-General reaffirmed.

In late October, in a speech addressing the Ukrainian parliament, Stoltenberg said that the path to joining the alliance was not easy and those do so should make significant reforms, but that NATO's doors remain open to Ukraine.

By Beka Alexishvili