NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte justified the statements of the US administration of Donald Trump about Ukraine's accession to NATO and assured that there are no changes.
He said this in an interview with the NV website.
Rutte was reminded that at the Washington summit it was stated that Ukraine's path to NATO is irreversible, but then Trump said that Ukraine would never become a member of the Alliance.
In response, the NATO Secretary General stated that the Washington summit had a clear result, "however, Ukraine was never promised that NATO membership would be part of a peace agreement or a ceasefire."
"And sometimes I hear Americans say: we do not think that NATO membership will be part of a ceasefire or a peace agreement, that this contradicts the wording of the Washington summit," Rutte noted.
He emphasized that he did not agree with this statement, because he thinks that "this is very consistent with the wording of the Washington summit."
"These are two separate things: a peace agreement and a long-term perspective," he said.
Asked whether he believed that Ukrainian membership in NATO was possible under Trump, Rutte replied: "let's not interpret what he said."
"We have the wording from the Washington summit about a long-term perspective. And when exactly that will happen, we don't know. There is an irreversible path to NATO," he concluded.
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