Brussels - NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen will pay a one-day visit to Ukraine on February 24.
Rasmussen announced this at a special briefing for Ukrainian journalists in Brussels on Feb. 17
It is expected that the secretary general will meet with Ukraine’s top leaders, in particular, President Viktor Yanukovych, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, and Foreign Minister Kostiantyn Hryschenko. Rasmussen will also deliver a lecture to students at a university in Kyiv.
The possibility of a meeting between the NATO secretary general and the Ukrainian president was discussed on February 25, 2010 at a meeting between the newly elected president and NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General Robert Simmons. At a press conference in March, Rasmussen reiterated his desire to personally meet with Yanukovych.
The first such meeting was held in New York on September 23, 2010 at a session of the UN General Assembly. During the meeting, Rasmussen invited Yanukovych to attend the NATO summit in Lisbon on November 19-20 to participate in a meeting on Afghanistan. However, Ukraine was represented by Foreign Minister Hryschenko, who explained the president’s absence by the need to prepare for the EU-Ukraine summit, which took place in Brussels on November 22.
