Ukraine is interested in joining the building of a common missile defense system with NATO, Anatoly Hrytsenko said, the head of the Ukrainian parliamentary committee on national security and defense.
"We are interested in participating in the building of a joint missile defense system and developing our technologies and creating new jobs through this. In my view, we have more reasons for direct cooperation [with NATO] than many of the two scores of Euro-Atlantic partners," Hrytsenko told journalists following a meeting between a group of Ukrainian parliamentarians and NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in Kyiv on Thursday.
The building of a common European missile defense system was discussed in detail at the meeting, he said.
The parliamentarians insisted that Ukraine, which has been cooperating with NATO for quite a long time and is taking part in all of its operations, deserves more than just being listed among "other European partners," he said.
The alliance is primarily cooperating with Russia now in building a common European missile defense, Hrytsenko said.
He also said he had noted at the meeting that Ukraine should be more active in developing defense industry cooperation with the NATO countries.
"Since 1994, cooperation under Partnership For Peace has not ended up in a single example of convincing success in cooperation between the Ukrainian and NATO defense industries," Hrytsenko said.
Such cooperation would transfer the Ukrainian armed forces to a new system of armaments "oriented not only toward the Russian Federation," he said.
The Ukrainian armed forces are approaching a line when they should make "a strategic choice" in their rearmament, he said.
