You're reading: Ukrainian coalition plans to cancel non-aligned status, seek NATO membership – agreement

Ukraine will cancel its non-aligned status and resume integration with NATO as part of measures to reform its national security and defense system, as is evident from a draft Ukrainian parliamentary coalition agreement initialed by its future members. 

The future coalition plans “to draw up and make amendments to Ukraine’s laws on foundations of domestic and foreign policy and foundations of national security, envisioning, inter alia, the cancellation of Ukraine’s non-aligned status, the resumption of a political course toward integration into the Euro-Atlantic security space, and acquisition of North-Atlantic Treaty Organization membership,” says the draft coalition agreement posted on the Samopomich party’s website on Friday.

Among measures to reform the national security and defense system, Ukraine should pass new versions of the National Security Strategy and Military Strategy, taking into account changes in the military-political situation surrounding Ukraine, the document says.

“Among other things, the Military Doctrine shall contain the term ‘potential enemy’ and clearly determine criteria for recognizing a certain state or a group of states as a potential enemy,” it says.

In addition, the future coalition members listed the reestablishment of Ukraine’s national sovereignty over Crimea among the strategic goals of Ukraine’s foreign and domestic policy.

It was reported earlier that the participants in a NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008 resoled that Ukraine would become a NATO member if it wished to do so and met the necessary criteria.

In spring 2010, then President Viktor Yanukovych said Ukraine was not ready to join NATO as most of the Ukrainian public did not support the idea, which goes against the alliance membership criteria.

The Verkhovna Rada passed the bill on principles of foreign and domestic policy on July 1, 2010, and Yanukovych signed it into law on July 15, 2010. The law stipulated that Ukraine would strictly adhere to its non-aligned status and would actively contribute to the development of a collective security system in the European and Euro-Atlantic area.