Kuleba hopes Ukraine granted MAP to NATO in 2022

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba expressed hope that NATO will provide Ukraine with a Membership Action Plan (MAP) in 2022.

“Thus, given the context, this is a very good declaration for us. But I always honestly tell partners that good declarations must be followed by good actions. The best such action is to grant Ukraine the MAP in 2022,” Kuleba said on his page in Facebook on June 15.

In particular, the minister said that a couple of days before the NATO summit, there was no mention of the MAP for Ukraine in the text of the declaration following the NATO summit in Brussels on June 14.

“It is true that we literally gnawed it out at the last moment due to our own perseverance, honest conversation with NATO, and the strong support of our key friends,” he said.

In addition, Kuleba said that NATO summit declarations were adopted in 2014, 2016, and 2018.

“In none of them, the allies did not mention the MAP for Ukraine. They could, but did not mention it. Although at that time Ukraine was at war and deserved such support,” he said.

According to him, the summit’s declaration has a much broader context.

“This is essentially a plan of action for the new NATO, in which the United States made peace with the rest of the allies and now, with new forces, the Alliance will work to achieve its goals, support certain friends, including Ukraine, and deter certain rivals, including Russia,” the minister said.

Kuleba said that Ukraine has already made enough reforms to obtain the MAP.

“When we are told ‘let us get even more reforms,’ I have one question: How much more? We must continue the reforms, but we must not put up with the situation when certain NATO member states use reforms in Ukraine as an excuse to hide their own unwillingness to irritate Russia,” he said.

The Ukrainian Foreign Minister said that Ukraine will be a NATO member. “There is an agreement for this both in the Alliance and in Ukraine. And the sooner we take the MAP path, the stronger Ukraine and the Euro-Atlantic space as a whole will become. Everything else is the context with which we systematically work,” Kuleba said.