Your turn!

For now, Yulia Tymoshenko has been showing her willingness to speak “in a single voice” about Ukraine’s foreign policy. This was confirmed by her recent visit to NATO Headquarters in Brussels. In fact, until the last moment, it was not known whether the prime minister would pay a visit to the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Some Ukrainian media even reported that the mission was assigned to Hryhorii Nemyria, Deputy Prime Minister for European and International Integration. But this sensation did not take place. Ending her first foreign visit after regaining her post as the head of the Ukrainian government, she met with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and had an hour-long discussion with him.

Afterwards, she declared that her meeting with the Secretary General was of a conceptual nature, during which the NATO chief said that all NATO-Ukraine strategic models of cooperation were implemented slowly in the previous eight months, and they needed some acceleration to make them more dynamic. Certainly, it is too soon to speak about the Alliance’s reaction to the letter handed to Scheffer in person by Volodymyr Ohryzko, the Ukrainian foreign minister. According to sources in NATO headquarters, the discussion of the letter has just begun. The conferences of NATO defense and foreign ministers, to which Ukraine’s defense and foreign ministers will be invited, have yet to be held.

For now, the official NATO reaction to the letter has been announced by James Appathurai, the official spokesperson, who said that the Secretary General, together with all the members of the Alliance, share the ambitions of Ukraine and other countries in the area of development of Euro- Atlantic integration.

Tymoshenko informed Scheffer that Ukraine’s final decision on joining NATO will be approved by a referendum. She also explained how the issues of Ukraine’s prospects for joining NATO affect political stability in Ukraine. After her meeting in Brussels with Xavier Solana, the EU High Representative for the Common Foreign Security Policy, Tymoshenko declared that Ukraine needs a broad information campaign about global systems of collective security, including NATO. She emphasized that her government “will implement a program” for conducting such an information campaign.

Tymoshenko gave more details of her vision of the development of relations with NATO in the latest issue of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “Twenty-five percent of our country’s population supports the idea of joining the Alliance. Another part shows hostility to such a prospect. The issue is one of the controversial ones that are connected with the unity and integrity of Ukraine. That is why this topic should not be broached without explaining to Ukrainians what NATO is, what its program includes, and what will our accession will bring us,” the German newspaper reported, citing Tymoshenko.

“For us, our independence and territorial integrity are most important. Thus, we have to gradually accomplish the process of joining NATO,” the prime minister said. Speaking about the problem that is splitting the country, Tymoshenko noted that politicians ought to be as discreet as possible in their statements.

The leader of the political bloc that bears her name was the very soul of discretion in her statements about this hot issue. NATO was not mentioned in the BYuT’s pre-election promises. Tymoshenko obviously realizes that great explanatory work is needed, and the state has a lot to do to carry out its set task.