KIEV, December 23. /TASS/. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Tuesday there is no alternative to the country’s integration into NATO and the European Union.
“Finally, we corrected the mistake: 303 lawmakers voted for giving up the non-bloc status of Ukraine. There is no alternative to the country’s European and Euro-Atlantic integration,” Poroshenko said on Facebook.
Earlier in the day, Ukraine’s parliament voted to renounce the country’s non-aligned status in a move that paves the way for Kiev’s NATO membership bid.
The law, proposed by President Petro Poroshenko, was backed by 303 lawmakers, 77 more than the required minimum. The lawmakers considered a total of four similar bills.
All of these bills envisage “the abandonment of the non-bloc status and the return towards NATO rapprochement that will significantly increase Ukraine’s positions in defense.”
Commenting on the law, Russian permanent representative to the OSCE Andrey Kelin said Ukraine did not correspond to criteria for joining NATO either in economic or in political terms.
Kiev started building ties with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ukraine was one of the first former Soviet states which joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace Program in 1994.