You're reading: Tymoshenko’s team collects over 3.3 million votes for referendum on Ukraine’s accession to NATO

Batkivschyna Party leader Yulia Tymoshenko has said she is confident that she has enough arguments to convince Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko of the need to immediately hold a referendum on the country's accession to NATO simultaneously with early parliamentary elections on Oct. 26.

“I have all the arguments to convince the Ukrainian president of the need to immediately begin the process of holding a national referendum on Ukraine’s accession to NATO,” she told journalists in Kyiv on Wednesday, Oct. 22.

She said that if Ukraine loses time, it would again make another “strategic mistake, which in the future will bring new threats to Ukraine’s national security, to preserving sovereignty, preserving peace in our country, as well as preserving the state border.”

Tymoshenko noted that only a political decision of the Ukrainian president was needed to set a date for a national referendum on Ukraine’s accession to NATO.

“Our team has gathered 3,300,931 signatures of Ukrainians for holding a referendum on joining NATO simultaneously with parliamentary elections,” Tymoshenko said.