Only Ukraine can determine when it would negotiate with Russia to finish the struggle, and what a suitable answer may be, Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary normal of NATO, stated on Thursday, clarifying NATO’s stance after his chief of employees, Stian Jenssen, urged on Tuesday that Ukraine might achieve alliance membership in alternate for ceding its Russian-occupied territory.
Mr. Jenssen had created a global stir with the suggestion, which Ukraine considers an unacceptable choice. He later apologized for the feedback, which had been first reported by the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang, including that it was a mistake and that it was crucially essential that NATO helps Ukraine.
On Thursday, Mr. Stoltenberg stated at a convention in Norway that NATO’s stance on Ukraine’s potential alliance membership had not modified.
“It is the Ukrainians, and only the Ukrainians, who can decide when there are conditions in place for negotiations, and who can decide at the negotiating table what is an acceptable solution,” Mr. Stoltenberg stated, in accordance with Reuters.
John F. Kirby, a White House spokesman, echoed Mr. Stoltenberg at a news convention on Wednesday, dismissing the potential for exchanging Ukrainian territory for alliance membership.
“Yeah, there’s nothing to that,” he stated.
At a summit assembly in July, NATO stated that Ukraine could be invited to affix the alliance, however remained imprecise on how or when. The place was basically a victory for President Biden, who had stated beforehand that Ukraine was not prepared for NATO membership, although President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine had sharply criticized the “uncertainty” over Ukraine’s path to membership.
Ukrainian officers expressed outrage at Mr. Jenssen’s remarks.
“Trading territory for a NATO umbrella? It is ridiculous,” Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Mr. Zelensky, wrote in a publish on X, previously often called Twitter. “That means deliberately choosing the defeat of democracy, encouraging a global criminal, preserving the Russian regime, destroying international law, and passing the war on to other generations.”
A Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Oleg Nikolenko, additionally condemned Mr. Jenssen’s suggestion in a Facebook publish, calling it “completely unacceptable.”
Russia indicated it was no extra keen on the concept. Maria Zakharova, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, known as Mr. Jenssen’s suggestion “a bogus story that has certain political goals,” in accordance with Tass, a state news company.
And the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitri Medvedev, stated on Telegram that Ukraine must surrender its capital, Kyiv, if it had been to think about exchanging territories for NATO membership.
Source: www.nytimes.com