NATO will closely monitor the upcoming parliamentary elections in Ukraine, the secretary general of the alliance, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has said.
He said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine that the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (NATO PA) was considering sending its election observers to Ukraine.
While commenting on a clause of the declaration of the NATO summit in Chicago, which urged Ukraine to hold fair and free parliamentary elections, the secretary general said that the partnership between Ukraine and NATO is based on a strict commitment to democracy, which involves holding free and fair elections. NATO will follow the elections in Ukraine with great interest, he said.
When asked whether he knew if the NATO Parliamentary Assembly planned to send its observers to Ukraine’s parliamentary elections, as it did last time, Rasmussen said that the Parliamentary Assembly would take this decisions independently.
However, the secretary general said he knew that the NATO PA was considering the possibility of sending observers to the elections in Ukraine. Rasmussen said that should they decide to do so, he would welcome this decision.
