Ukrainian president signs law to resume course towards NATO

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Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Thursday he had signed the law on the resumption of Ukraine's course towards joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

"From now on, the course towards Ukraine's NATO membership is clearly defined as one of the key factors of Ukraine's state policy," Poroshenko wrote on Facebook.

He pledged to intensify efforts on reforming Ukraine's security and defense sectors to meet criteria for joining the alliance.

File photo: Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma (L) with NATO General Secretary Javier Solana after the signing of the NATO/Ukraine charter, at the Municipal Palacios de Congressos in Madrid on 09 July 1997. /VCG Photo

However, some local experts doubt that Ukraine has prospects to gain NATO membership anytime soon as the country does not meet either military or political, economic and legal criteria for it.

"We must work hard to remove the obstacles for the NATO membership, and it means a need for reforms, a need for fighting corruption and changing the judicial system," said Borys Tarasyuk, the former head of Ukraine's mission to NATO.

Among other obstacles for Ukraine to join the alliance, Tarasyuk listed the conflict in eastern regions with pro-independence insurgents and the territorial dispute with Russia over Crimea.

Ukraine's Minister of Defence and General of Army Stepan Poltorak (L) shakes hands with US Defense Minister James Mattis during a NATO Defense Council meeting at the NATO Headquarters in Brussels on June 29, 2017. /VCG Photo

Ukraine joined the North Atlantic Cooperation Council in 1991 shortly after Kiev gained its independence from the former Soviet Union.

In 2003, Ukraine declared a course towards NATO membership, but revoked the policy in 2010, declaring non-aligned status.

Shortly after the conflict between government troops and rebels broke out in eastern Ukraine in April 2014, the Ukrainian parliament abandoned the country's non-aligned status, paving the way for it to join the military bloc.

(Source: Xinhua)