{"id":407300,"date":"2019-06-05T16:30:35","date_gmt":"2019-06-05T13:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uatv.ua\/zelesnkyi-promises-nato-referendum\/"},"modified":"2019-06-05T16:30:35","modified_gmt":"2019-06-05T13:30:35","slug":"zelesnkyi-promises-nato-referendum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uatv.ua\/en\/zelesnkyi-promises-nato-referendum\/","title":{"rendered":"Zelenskyi Promises NATO Referendum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rferl.org\/embed\/player\/0\/29982954.html?type=video\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/center>Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi has promised to hold a referendum on NATO membership &#8212; a move strongly opposed by Moscow &#8212; as the country embarks on a path of European and Euro-Atlantic integration, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rferl.org\/a\/ukraine-president-promises-nato-referendum-as-part-of-path-to-west\/29982943.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">RadioFreeEurope\/RadioLiberty<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking in an interview today with RFE\/RL that also ran on Ukraine&#8217;s 1+1 channel, the recently elected Zelenskyi said Ukraine and its people had the right as a sovereign nation to choose the alliances they desire, regardless of outside opinions.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I said that we need to inform each Ukrainian about what NATO is like, which is not so terrible, and when Ukrainians are ready, we will definitely bring this issue to a referendum, and Ukraine will definitely be in NATO,&#8221; said the former comic actor with no prior political experience who took over as president two weeks ago.<\/p>\n<p>Zelenskyi made the comments on the second and last day of his visit to <a href=\"https:\/\/eng.uatv.ua\/zelenskyi-begins-first-foreign-trip\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Brussels<\/a> &#8212; his first foreign trip since being elected &#8212; where he held talks with top European Union and <a href=\"https:\/\/eng.uatv.ua\/zelenskyi-assures-eu-nato-will-stay-course\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NATO officials<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A day earlier, Zelenskyi said that Ukraine&#8217;s &#8220;strategic course to achieve full-fledged membership in the EU and NATO&#8221; remained unchanged from the goal of his predecessor, Petro Poroshenko.<\/p>\n<p>Moscow has made explicit its opposition to NATO&#8217;s further expansion, especially as regards to Ukraine and Georgia. Tbilisi is also seeking to become a member of the Western military alliance.<\/p>\n<p>Fighting between government forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine has killed some 13,000 people since April 2014, shortly after Russia seized control of Ukraine&#8217;s Crimean Peninsula.<\/p>\n<p>Cease-fire deals announced as part of the Minsk accords in September 2014 and February 2015 have contributed to a decrease in fighting in the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk but have failed to hold.<\/p>\n<p>NATO and the European Union have invested heavily in Ukraine and its 44 million people, who in addition to the conflict and Russia&#8217;s occupation of Crimea face entrenched corruption and major economic hurdles.<\/p>\n<p>NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has called Ukraine a &#8220;highly valued partner&#8221; that does not &#8220;recognize Russia&#8217;s illegal annexation of Crimea.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But Zelenskiy, who conducted the June 5 interview while riding a stationary bike in a gym at a Brussels hotel, acknowledged that Brussels had signaled disappointment with Ukraine&#8217;s democratic failures and the slow pace of reforms.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t want to be one of those perceived by European countries as someone who promises reforms and then fails to perform the task,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I know the conditions that come with the support and we are ready.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Zelenskyi, who was inaugurated on May 20 after defeating incumbent Poroshenko by a large margin, also took aim at those spreading rumors of a possible default on the country&#8217;s debt, noting it was still cooperating with the International Monetary Fund and meeting its obligations.<\/p>\n<p>The two sides have agreed to work on a new aid program after snap parliamentary elections in July, and Zelenskiy said his team was pushing for a law criminalizing illicit enrichment by officials, which is a condition for more International Monetary Fund money.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Unless we adopt such a law, I don&#8217;t think we have the right to speak about any anticorruption activity in Ukraine,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi has promised to hold a referendum on NATO &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":407301,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,55,36537],"tags":[36961],"sources":[],"class_list":["post-407300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","category-ukraine-en","category-11473-ukraine-en-news-en-4","tag-russian-aggression"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - 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