Ukraine's Rada issues address to NATO summit, calls for inviting Ukraine to alliance

MOSCOW. June 28 (Interfax) - The Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada has urged participants in a NATO summit to be held in Vilnius on July 11-12 to undertake "an obligation to grant Ukraine membership of the alliance."

Ukraine media reported with reference to parliamentarian Yaroslav Zheleznyak that, in its address, the Rada called on the NATO summit participants to support the Ukrainian peace formula and set up a mechanism of crisis consultations with Kiev based on Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty, providing for consultations whenever the territorial integrity, political independence, or security of Ukraine or any other NATO member state is threatened.

The Rada urged NATO to appraise Ukraine's success in virtually achieving the interoperability of its military standards with the alliance's standards and undertake an obligation to grant Ukraine full membership of the alliance and provide for a mechanism for inviting Ukraine into NATO.

Rada insisted that the Vilnius summit participants should acknowledge that it would be unreasonable for Ukraine to pass one of the conventional stages on an aspiring country's path toward membership, namely the implementation of a NATO Membership Action Plan, and make a strategic decision on inviting Ukraine into NATO.