A decision on Ukraine's accession to NATO lies in the hands of the Ukrainian people, not the United States, US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman told Ukrainian newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda on Wednesday
KIEV (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th February, 2022) A decision on Ukraine's accession to NATO lies in the hands of the Ukrainian people, not the United States, US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman told Ukrainian newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda on Wednesday.
She said the United States would not make any Ukraine-related decision without Ukraine, any NATO-related decision without NATO, and any Europe-related decision without Europe. It is not up to the US to make these decisions unilaterally, she stressed.
Citing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Tuesday statement on Ukraine remaining committed to joining NATO, Sherman said that the US would support any decision that the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian government choose to make.
In the European security proposals which Russia made to NATO and the United States in December, Russia specifically asked for guarantees that NATO would not expand eastward to include Ukraine and Georgia. The US has vowed to continue supporting NATO's open door policy.
Ukraine and several Western countries have been accusing Russia of military build-up along the Ukrainian border in an alleged preparation of invasion. Russia has rejected these accusations and warned its Western counterparts supplying lethal weaponry to Ukraine that the latter could use it against the breakaway parts of the Donbas region.
