Poroshenko urges NATO to invite Ukraine to Alliance at Vilnius summit
Leader of the European Solidarity party, the fifth president of Ukraine (2014-19), Petro Poroshenko, during his speech at the 15th annual Kyiv Security Forum, founded by the Open Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk Foundation, said that the NATO summit in Vilnius should not repeat the mistake of Bucharest-2008 and announce the invitation of Ukraine to the Alliance, the European Solidarity said on its website on Friday.
“I will be terribly disappointed if the Ukrainian delegation brings back a photocopy of the 2008 Bucharest summit after the Summit in Vilnius. If the door (to NATO) is open, do let us in. If you don’t allow us to enter, then this door is not open,” he emphasized.
He stressed that only Ukraine's membership in the EU and NATO is the scenario that guarantees permanent peace.
“The question is how to win the war and not lose the peace. And in this situation we have three scenarios. The first scenario is the only one that all of Ukraine believes in. This is membership in the EU and membership in NATO. It means democracy, it means reforms, it means investment, it means post-war reconstruction. This means that Ukraine is integrated into the largest security organization in the world. And this is called the EU and NATO scenario,’” Poroshenko believes.
“How to win the war and not to lose peace? There are three scenarios. The first one is Ukraine’s membership in the EU and NATO. This means – democracy, reforms, investment, post-war reconstruction of Ukraine”, - said the ex-President, stressing that this scenario is the most desirable for Ukrainian people.
He stated that today about 90% of Ukrainians support it. “I want to remind you that even at the beginning of the full-scale war, I was accused that the war started because we made changes to the Constitution together with our parterres in 2019, which provide for mandatory membership in the EU and NATO,” Poroshenko said.
According to him, there is a second scenario that is also offered to us - these are the so-called security guarantees. “Whatever we do there, it will be a photocopy of the Budapest Memorandum. And what will it do? It will go to the project, which, relatively speaking, is called Israel. Israel also has security guarantees. Security guarantees in the best case will be in the supply of weapons to Ukraine, in order for the Ukrainian Armed Forces to fight. But this means a war that will never end and for which Ukrainians will pay a heavy price. That’s just Israel is at war with Gaza, and we are at war with the second largest nuclear power in the world,” Poroshenko emphasized.
“The price and sacrifices will be different. Therefore, no security guarantees can be considered by us now as the pro-Ukrainian scenario,” the fifth President is confident.
Also, according to him, there is a third scenario that “russia dreams of.” “And this scenario is called ‘Afghanistan’: when a dictatorship is formed in Ukraine, when Ukraine is not a member of NATO, when we are not given security guarantees and we are not given weapons. And this is the scenario that is putin’s dream,” warns Poroshenko.
“It is very important that today’s messages are heard during the Vilnius NATO summit. Because when we talk about protecting democracy, the protection of democracy takes place within the framework of our movement in the EU and NATO. Because NATO is democracy,” Poroshenko said.