Konstantin Gryshchenko: “All main political forces of Ukraine support our maximal broad cooperation with NATO”

Konstantin Gryshchenko, former minister of foreign affairs of Ukraine, Party of Regions representative in the Verkhovna Rada, said in the interview to the Charter’97 press center, the majority of political forces of the country stood for maximal broad cooperation with NATO.

--Mr Konstantin, Ukraine haven’t received what the leadership of the state counted on, but at the same time the right of Ukraine’s membership in NATO was admitted. How will it influence the situation in the country and behaviour of main political players?

– In principle, the NATO Council took better decision at high level. It’s known that there is no consensus on this question on further steps of Ukraine towards NATO membership in Ukraine. A considerable part of the electorate formed and hasn’t yet changed the negative attitude towards alliance in general. The Party of Regions, as the main political force, reflects these opinions, and the decision taken in Bucharest took into account the fact that 50 per cent of the Ukrainians do not support full integration in the alliance. At the same time the main political forces of Ukraine support maximal broad cooperation with NATO.

NATO programmes give maximal return for reforming of our military forces, law enforcement and power agencies, strengthening of democratic development of Ukraine. It is supported by the majority. We need to concentrate not only on evident problems, such as non-professional filing an application form, non-transparent procedure, which was preceded by signing an appeal on behalf of Ukraine. It creates a problem for the alliance and raises serious question in the country: in what degree does the acting government follow the democratic principles, which are important not only for our relations with NATO and Russia, but in general for international relations of Ukraine.

– As I understand, there is less controversies concerning integration in the EU...

– There are no more controversies concerning the integration in the European Union. There is a consensus of all political forces. There is only a question of who will put it into practise, who will implement the programmes which will allow us to speak with the EU at equals. Ukraine’s joining the EU will create additional values both for Ukraine and for the European Union.