NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told the President of Ukraine that the Atlantic Alliance and Ukraine will meet this Wednesday as partners, but he looks forward to the day they meet “as allies.”
“The decisions taken today here in Vilnius mark the beginning of a new chapter in NATO-Ukraine relations. Today we meet as equals, I look forward to the day when we meet as allies,” Jens Stolteberg said at a joint press conference with President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zekensky on the last day of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit.
Zelensky and Stoltenberg spoke minutes before the first meeting of the new NATO-Ukraine Council, a body that puts the country and allies on an equal footing, although Ukraine is not a member of this organization.
Stoltenberg insisted that an invitation to Ukraine to join NATO would only be extended “when the allies agree that the conditions have been met.”
The NATO Secretary General argued that there was a need to ensure that “when this war is over” there were “credible commitments” to Ukraine’s security “so that history does not repeat itself” and welcomed the willingness of some allies to provide “long-term security assistance” to Kiev.
Regarding the new NATO-Ukraine Council, Jens Stoltenberg explained that this body is different from others in that it can make decisions and meet at the level of heads of state and government, as well as at the foreign affairs, defense or military level.
“This is something new, something different, this is an important political tool for greater political integration and decision-making,” Stoltenberg said.
The NATO Secretary General recalled that Allies have approved a three-part package aimed at bringing Ukraine closer to NATO, which is going through a multi-year assistance program to help the Ukrainian armed forces transition from the Soviet era to the standards of the Atlantic Alliance, the new Ukraine-NATO Council and the abolition of the requirement for action plan for membership.
Regarding the coalition of countries formally launched on Tuesday by 11 member states, including Portugal, to train Ukrainian F-16 fighter pilots and technicians, Stoltenberg said he had instructions from allies that training would begin this summer.