Azerbaijan, Baku, 1 April / Trend corr A. Gasimova, D. Novosvitski/ The visit of US President George Bush to Kiev shows that Ukraine is on its way of entering the NATO. "Bush's visit to Kiev is going to encourage Ukraine to keep itself on the path to NATO membership, even if in Budapest the Membership Action Plan (MAP) is not going to be provided," the senior advisor of the Heritage Foundation (USA) Ariel Cohen said to Trend on 1 April.
On 1 April, during his official visit to Ukraine, the US President George Bush discussed with his Ukrainian counterpart Victor Yushenko the prospects of Ukraine's joining the NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP).
"So far, European allies of the US have opposed giving a MAP to Georgia and Ukraine. As Europe is increasingly dependent on the Russian gas and many European companies are expanding their business in Russia- Germany, France and other European countries would rather not tease the Bear. Yet, the United States supports the right of Ukraine and Georgia to be free and to be in NATO, even if it affects relations between Washington and Moscow," Cohen said.
According to the Ukrainian expert Aleksandr Paliy, if Ukraine does not join NATO MAP at the NATO Bucharest summit on 2-4 April, the decision on that may be made at the meeting of NATO countries' Foreign Ministers. "NATO summits are convened once in two years, but the decision on joining the МАР may be also taken at the meeting of the NATO Foreign Ministers. Such meetings take place very often and the next one will take place in half a year," Aleksandr Paliy, the expert of Foreign Policy Institution at the Ukrainian Diplomatic Academy, said to Trend on 1 April.
It is too difficult to make forecasts on what decision will be made at the Bucharest summit. " Ukraine has both strong supporters to its joining the MAP and strong adversaries to that. It is too difficult who will win. NATO is an organization where all the decisions are made though consensus," he said.
Paliy said if Ukraine does not join MAP in Bucharest that will be a political blow to Kiev's foreign political aims, because in that case they will require some changes. "If a negative decision is made, it will be necessary to correct the European policy of Ukraine, as well as the policy with the countries which support its joining NATO. If a positive decision is made, it will be necessary to commence an intensive work on concretizing the agreements to join NATO, without buzzing in the MAP," he said.
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