BRUSSELS: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Friday rejected Russia’s call for the West to withdraw its invitation to Ukraine to join the alliance.
“NATO’s relationship with Ukraine is going to be decided by the 30 NATO allies and Ukraine — no one else,” Stoltenberg said, at a joint news conference with Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
“We cannot accept that Russia is trying to re-establish a system where big powers like Russia have spheres of influence, where they can control or decide what other members can do.”
Earlier, Russia’s foreign ministry had said that NATO should formally scrap a 2008 declaration opening the door to Georgia and Ukraine, two former Soviet republics.
“In the fundamental interests of European security, it is necessary to officially disavow the decision of the 2008 NATO Bucharest summit that ‘Ukraine and Georgia will become NATO members’,” it said.
Russian troops now occupy two breakaway regions of Georgia, and Moscow has annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region while allegedly supporting separatist rebels in the neighboring Donbas.
In the past few weeks, Russia has moved around 100,000 troops to Ukraine’s border, sounding alarm bells in Washington and at NATO’s Brussels headquarters.
This week, Russian President Vladimir Putin and US leader Joe Biden held two hours of talks, with the Kremlin chief demanding the West guarantee that Ukraine would not become a NATO launchpad.
The Western allies are concerned about the Russian build-up, but have redeclared support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and warned Russia of deep “strategic and economic” consequences if it invades.
Stoltenberg was clear, insisting that while Western leaders are open to talks, they will “not compromise on the rights of every nation in Europe to decide their own path.
“This is enshrined in many documents and agreements that also Russia has signed,” he said, citing European security agreements going back to the Cold War.
“It has been clearly stated that any sovereign independent nation of course has the right to choose his own path, including what kind of security arrangements he wants to be part of.”
Scholz, who took power on Wednesday and was on his first trip as chancellor to NATO, also warned Russia.
“NATO Allies agree that any further aggression against Ukraine will come at a high price and have serious political and economic consequences for Russia,” he said.
The German leader is under pressure to commit to halting the opening of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline between Russia and Germany if Moscow attacks Ukraine.
He has not promised this, but he said: “We call on Russia to return to diplomacy and to de-escalate and to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Ukraine and Georgia are not on the verge of joining NATO, which has a mutual defense pact that would see other members mobilize to defend a partner if attacked.
But the United States and some allies help train Ukrainian forces, and Washington committed more than $2.5 billion to bolster a military that crumbled in the face of the Russian assault back in 2014.
NATO chief rejects Russia demand to bar Ukraine entry
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NATO chief rejects Russia demand to bar Ukraine entry
Archbishop of York says he was ‘intimidated’ by Israeli militias during West Bank visit
- “We were … intimidated by Israeli militias who told us that we couldn’t visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank,” the archbishop said
LONDON: The Archbishop of York has revealed that he felt “intimidated” by Israeli militias during a visit to the Holy Land this year.
“We were stopped at various checkpoints and intimidated by Israeli militias who told us that we couldn’t visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank,” the Rev. Stephen Cottrell told his Christmas Day congregation at York Minster.
The archbishop added: “We have become — and really, I can think of no other way of putting it — we have become fearful of each other, and especially fearful of strangers, or just people who aren’t quite like us.
“We don’t seem to be able to see ourselves in them, and therefore we spurn our common humanity.”
He recounted how YMCA charity representatives in Bethlehem, who work with persecuted Palestinian communities in the West Bank, gave him an olive wood Nativity scene carving.
The carving depicted a “large gray wall” blocking the three kings from getting to the stable to see Mary, Joseph and Jesus, he said.
He said it was sobering for him to see the wall in real life during his visit.
He continued: “But this Christmas morning here in York, as well as thinking about the walls that divide and separate the Holy Land, I’m also thinking of all the walls and barriers we erect across the whole of the world and, perhaps most alarming, the ones we build around ourselves, the ones we construct in our hearts and minds, and of how our fearful shielding of ourselves from strangers — the strangers we encounter in the homeless on our streets, refugees seeking asylum, young people starved of opportunity and growing up without hope for the future — means that we are in danger of failing to welcome Christ when he comes.”
