Kuleba: NATO does not imagine Black Sea security without Ukraine

"The meeting showed that the Alliance cannot imagine the security of the Black Sea without Ukraine and Georgia. And this is fundamentally important. It showed another point: most discussion participants in one way or another support the future membership of Ukraine and Georgia in the Alliance," Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba said in an exclusive commentary to Ukrinform.

He assessed the conversation as substantive and named the key "signals" of Ukraine during the meeting.

"Our key signals: Crimea is militarized by Russia - it is unacceptable, it poses a threat to the security of the Black Sea region, the ways in this region. Collective action is needed. Second, Ukraine seeks deeper engagement with the Alliance at all levels, in particular, we want to see more NATO exercises in the territory of Ukraine. Third, Ukraine's membership in NATO is inevitable, so we believe that everyone will benefit from it and we call for the next step, namely granting the Membership Action Plan. That was not a discussion. Everyone expressed their position, made statements," the minister said.

A virtual meeting of NATO foreign ministers took place on December 2. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine made a one-day working visit to Turkey to take part in the meeting. In addition, Kuleba met with Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, leaders and representatives of the Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar communities.

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