North Atlantic Treaty Organisation countries do not want to invite Ukraine to join the bloc because of large-scale corruption in the country, the British newspaper Telegraph quoted a senior US State Department official as saying.
“Ukraine will be told that it is currently too corrupt to join NATO,” the Telegraph publication said.
According to the newspaper, the North Atlantic alliance’s position will be put in writing in a NATO communiqué following the summit in Washington, which will be held from 9 to 11 July. The bloc will ask Kiev to take “additional steps” before accession talks advance, the paper said.
“We need to take a step back and celebrate all that Ukraine has done in the name of reform over the last two years… As they continue to implement these reforms, we want to thank them and talk about additional steps that need to be taken, especially in the area of fighting corruption. This is a priority for many of us around the table,” a senior US State Department official told Telegraph.
We will remind, earlier the former deputy head of the office of Ukrainian President Andrey Yermak Kirill Timoshenko was appointed as an adviser to Defence Minister Rustem Umerov. According to Ukrainian media reports, Timoshenko may figure in a series of major corruption scandals, one of the biggest of which is embezzlement at the Big Construction.