The 2-day annual summit of NATO leaders in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius on Tuesday and Wednesday will mostly be about Ukraine and its future in the Western military alliance.
“At the Summit, we will make Ukraine even stronger, and set out a vision for its future,” stressed NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in his pre-summit press conference in Brussels on Friday.
The leaders of the 31-member Allied are expected to agree on a package of support to Ukraine, but not a full membership which could risk a direct conflict between NATO and Russia. “I am confident that we’ll find the united way also to address the specific issue on membership, but I will not go into the details of exact language now because that is something we will announce when everything is in place by the summit, “said Stoltenberg.
The US, Germany and some other NATO members consider that Ukraine should not be invited in while it’s at war, so as not to encourage Russia to widen the conflict.
NATO could come into direct collision with Russia if Ukraine joined the bloc before the conflict in the country is over, US President Joe Biden said in an interview with CNN TV broadcast on Friday.
“I don’t think there is unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the NATO family now, at this moment, in the middle of a war,” Biden said.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told the German Parliament recently that Ukraine joining the military bloc as long as the conflict rages on is out of question.
On his part, Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba in an article published in the US-based Foreign Policy magazine said, “If NATO leaders are not yet ready to grant an invitation in Vilnius, they should state clearly when they will be. Membership has formal requirements, but an invitation does not. All that is required is strategic foresight and political will.” The Vilnius summit comes at a time when the West considers Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hold of power to be weakened following the mutiny by the mercenary Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin. “A weaker Putin is a greater danger,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell commented on the mutiny.
NATO chief, Jens Stoltenberg, that while it was “too early to draw any final conclusions”, Wagner’s revealed “cracks and divisions” in Russia.
NATO leaders are expected to create a new high-level forum called the NATO-Ukraine Council for consultations and crisis talks. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will attend the council’s first meeting in Vilnius on Wednesday.
On its part, the European press considers Ukraine’s aspiration to join the Alliance as a difficult issue.
Estonian daily Eesti Paevaleht wrote that “Ukraine’s application for membership is clearly the most difficult issue. The goal is a concrete accession agenda, or in other words an answer to the question of how and under what conditions Ukraine can become a member of the Alliance.” Verslo Zinios newspaper in Lithuania commented that “Ukraine is not waiting for fine speeches, nor for vague promises, nor for if-then considerations that lead nowhere, but for substantive decisions. With a realistic timetable for accession”.
The second most-important topic on the agenda is Sweden’s membership. Turkiye continues to block the Nordic country’s membership accusing it of supporting anti-Turkiye Kurdish militant groups and for not stopping anti-Islam manifestations.
A Quran-burning protest outside a mosque in Stockholm recently has aggravated the situation. Swedish Police permitted the protest, citing freedom of speech, after a court overturned a ban on a similar burning of the Quran.
Turkiye’s defense ministry spokesman Zeki Akturk condemned the “vile attack on our sacred values that was carried out in the name of so-called freedom of expression.” “The Quran-burning incident that took place of the first day of the Eid al-Adha holiday is an indication of how justified we were with our reservations (about Sweden),”Akturk said, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday that he will hold a joint meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkiye and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson Vilnius on Monday, on the eve of the summit, in an effort “to bridge the gap we still see.” Finland and Sweden had applied last year to join NATO following the Russian military invasion of Ukraine. Finland joined last April but Sweden is waiting at the door.
Analysts opine that the main objectives of NATO leaders are to weaken Russia militarily by imposing wide-range of sanction so that Moscow will not think of invading another country again.
Secondly, they want to avoid direct military confrontation between Russia and NATO members, which could spark a global military conflict. Further, NATO leaders are expected to preview the transatlantic agenda for the future: NATO 2030. The Alliance summit will address global developments relevant to its security by strengthening and broadening political consultations and increasing cooperation with partners, including in the Asia-Pacific.
Leaders of Indo-Pacific region Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea, Union, will also take part in the Vilnius Summit In its 2022 Strategic Concept document, the alliance singled out two countries as the biggest threat to member nations- Russia, and China.
The West considers the growing cooperation between Russia and China as a security risk in the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions.
On its part, China has criticized NATO’s design in the Indo-Pacific region.
“We have seen NATO bent on going east into this region, interfering in regional affairs and inciting bloc confrontation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin recently said. “The majority of Asian countries oppose the emergence of military blocs in the region. They don’t welcome NATO’s outreach in Asia,” he added.
The summit is also expected to agree on steps to strengthen deterrence and defense, with the adoption of three new regional defense plans to counter the two main threats to NATO: Russia and terrorism. The plans will be supported by 300,000 troops on higher readiness, including substantial air and naval combat power.
Source: Kuwait News Agency