By BUCHAREST. Nov 29 (Interfax-Ukraine) – NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg expects that during the meeting of the foreign ministers of the alliance member countries, their Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba will raise the issue of further increasing assistance to Ukraine.
He said this before the start of a two-day meeting of the foreign ministers of the member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Bucharest on Tuesday.
“One of the important reasons why this meeting today is so important and timely, is that this provides us with the platform to mobilize further support to step up [for Ukraine] even more, and also for Minister Kuleba to meet all his colleagues in NATO and then to address those urgent needs. And I’m confident that Minister Kuleba will raise also the need for stepping up further when it comes to rebuilding their power infrastructure,” Stoltenberg said.
According to the Secretary General, NATO allies are already supplying Ukraine with the necessary assistance, “to help them mitigate the consequences of the brutal attacks against critical infrastructure, including gas and power infrastructure.” “We have delivered generators, we have delivered spare parts and Allies are in different ways helping to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure,” he said.
Answering the question about Ukraine’s future membership in the alliance, Stoltenberg expressed confidence that the foreign ministers at the meeting “reiterate that NATO’s door is open.” This is demonstrated by the recent admission of Northern Macedonia and Montenegro to the alliance, and the invitation to membership of Finland and Sweden. “On Ukrainian membership, we stated that Ukraine will become a member. I expect Allies to reiterate also that position. However, the main focus now is on supporting Ukraine. We are in the midst of a war, and therefore we should do nothing that can undermine the unity of Allies to provide military, humanitarian, financial support to Ukraine, because we must prevent President Putin from winning and we need to ensure that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign independent nation,” the Secretary General said.
