Ukraine Parliament Votes to End Non-Aligned Status in NATO Move – Bloomberg.
Ukraine’s parliament backed a proposal to cancel the country’s non-aligned status, a decision that Russia calls a dangerous step toward seeking membership of NATO.
The legislation put forward by President Petro Poroshenko was supported today by 303 of 357 lawmakers in the chamber, hours after the announcement of fresh talks to try to end the conflict with pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine. The bill will help Ukraine as it seeks to achieve “all criteria of membership” for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin told parliament.
The vote in Ukraine is “counter-productive” and will increase confrontation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Moscow today. It will have “extremely negative consequences” and amounts to an “application to join NATO,” Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev wrote on Facebook last night.
