Stoltenberg: Don’t expect formal NATO invite for Ukraine at summit

Berlin, Jun. 19, (dpa/GNA) – NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg does not expect NATO to fulfil Ukraine’s request for a formal invitation to join the defence alliance at the upcoming summit in July.

“At the Vilnius summit and in the preparations for the summit we are not discussing to issue a formal invitation,” he said on Monday after a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin.

“What we are discussing is how to move Ukraine closer to NATO.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly stressed in recent weeks that he expected a formal invitation at the summit in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.

Neither in Ukraine nor in Europe nor in NATO would the majority of the population understand if Kiev did not receive a “well-deserved invitation” at the top-level meeting in Lithuania, he said.

According to Stoltenberg, there will be no more discussion about this now.

While he could not anticipate the results of the summit, he said the allies were already in agreement on many points concerning Ukraine.

There is agreement that NATO’s door is open and that Ukraine had already been given the prospect of membership at the Bucharest summit in 2008.

GNA