NATO’s communiqué released on Wednesday during the summit in Washington repeated a vague promise made to Ukraine last year regarding its future membership and accused China of fueling the Russia-Ukraine war.
The communiqué describes Ukraine’s potential future NATO membership as “irreversible” but does not offer concrete steps toward Kyiv actually joining the alliance.
“We welcome the concrete progress Ukraine has made since the Vilnius Summit on its required democratic, economic, and security reforms. As Ukraine continues this vital work, we will continue to support it on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership,” the communiqué reads.
The communiqué continues and says NATO will invite Ukraine to join when “Allies agree and conditions are met,” the same ambiguous language used in last year’s communiqué at the summit in Vilnius that had Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky fuming.
The alliance did make new commitments to Ukraine related to the proxy war against Russia, including a pledge to provide $43 billion in military aid in 2025, new air defense systems, and the stationing of a NATO official in Kyiv.
Regarding Beijing, the communiqué took aim at China’s trade relationship with Russia. The alliance said the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has “become a decisive enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine through its so-called ‘no limits’ partnership and its large-scale support for Russia’s defense industrial base.”
In recent months, the US and NATO have been accusing China of fueling the war in Ukraine despite the fact that Beijing hasn’t sent military aid while the Western alliance has been pouring weapons into the conflict zone and discouraging peace talks. In the communiqué, the alliance demands that China stop exporting “dual use” items to Russia.
“We call on the PRC, … to cease all material and political support to Russia’s war effort. This includes the transfer of dual-use materials, such as weapons components, equipment, and raw materials that serve as inputs for Russia’s defense sector. The PRC cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation,” the communiqué reads.
NATO started targeting China in its documents in 2020, and in 2022, it formally declared the North Atlantic military alliance was facing a security “challenge” from Beijing. “The PRC continues to pose systemic challenges to Euro-Atlantic security,” the communiqué reads.
China continues to strongly condemn NATO’s focus on it and the Asia Pacific region as a whole. “China’s position on NATO is consistent. We firmly oppose NATO acting beyond its characterization as a regional defensive alliance, inserting itself into the Asia-Pacific to incite confrontation and rivalry, and disrupting the prosperity and stability in this region,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said on Wednesday.
strangely enough, China and Trump are in agreement and right: disband NATO.
A novel idea!
But Trump didn't have the courage of his convictions … or, to put it another way, Congress Repubs told him he'd be impeached, prosecuted and jailed if he did anything like that.
Or, he was doing what he usually does, which is blab anything he wants, even if he does not have an conviction behind his statements. We have to remember that it was he who withdrew from the INF treaty, as well as the Open Skies.
Yes. With him it's often hard to tell whether he's just BS'ing or he means it … but the point is, it doesn't matter really. If he meant it, he would have been gotten rid of asap. It's been that way since Nov '63.
Plus, his convictions seemed to change depending who was in the room with him at any particular time. He went from wanting to leave NATO to bragging how he saved NATO. But I give him credit for even talking about leaving NATO. We needed a president to say it out loud.
We fully support Ukraine’s right to choose its own security arrangements and decide its own future, free from outside interference. Ukraine’s future is in NATO. Ukraine has become increasingly interoperable and politically integrated with the Alliance. We welcome the concrete progress Ukraine has made since the Vilnius Summit on its required democratic, economic, and security reforms. As Ukraine continues this vital work, we will continue to support it on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership. We reaffirm that we will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met. The Summit decisions by NATO and the NATO-Ukraine Council, combined with Allies’ ongoing work, constitute a bridge to Ukraine’s membership in NATO. Allies will continue to support Ukraine’s progress on interoperability as well as additional democratic and security sector reforms, which NATO Foreign Ministers will continue to assess through the adapted Annual National Programme.
Someday, Ukraine's Prince will Come
Tomorrow is Always a Day Away for Ukraine
Hey, Ukraine, Don't Stop Thinking about Tomorrow
"Don't stop, believin' … hold on to that feeling" …
"Tell me about the rabits, George."
75 Years of NATO = 75 Years of Denial
German parliamentarian Sevim Dagdelen says for NATO, denial of its true nature is part of the essence of the organization.
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/07/09/75-years-of-nato-75-years-of-denial/
They keep pumping self-justifying gas into this laughably false construction all the time knowing it's going to explode in their face.
“We welcome the concrete progress Ukraine has made since the Vilnius Summit on its required democratic, economic, and security reforms. As Ukraine continues this vital work, we will continue to support it on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership,” the communiqué reads.
Could you give us a list? Especially the "democratic" reforms. That list must be long. /s
yessssssssssssssss
Well, "reform" can mean a lot of things. Cancelling elections for parliament and president is a "reform," of a kind, in terms of democracy. So are banning opposition parties, and "opposition" churches, taking over the media, putting out hit lists for critics, etc.
Nobody insures a house on fire Ukraine was frozen out of NATO prior to the SMO thanks to the ongoing conflict in the Donbas. The promise is worthless, Ukraine has to become a western-ish style non-corrupt democracy first and then convince all members of NATO to allow it to join. That is a lot of uncertainty. It is in any case 20 years down the road
Lying through our teeth: it's what we do. It's who we are.