NATO is not willing to offer membership to Ukraine until after the conflict with Russia is resolved, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has said.
Sikorski spoke at an American Enterprise Institute (AEI) event on Friday, after the US-led military bloc's summit in Washington. He had been a fellow at AEI in the early 2000s, before joining the Polish government.
Asked by host Dalibor Rohac about the seeming reluctance of the US and Germany to invite Ukraine into NATO, Sikorski replied that membership would happen “after the war,” adding, “but Ukraine first has to win.”
“There is nothing more dangerous in international relations than a non-credible security guarantee,” Sikorski said. “We had that in 1939 and it was not good for us. It makes you braver than you should be. NATO guarantees should be only extended to situations in which we are willing to go to war on behalf of the country to whom we are giving the guarantee.”
“There is no appetite in the alliance to do that now,” he added.
NATO members are willing to provide “long-term assistance to Ukraine in winning this,” Sikorski insisted.
Hungary and Slovakia have publicly opposed Ukraine’s membership in the US-led bloc, saying that this would mean a direct confrontation with Russia and a third world war. NATO rules require the consent of all member states before new ones can join.
The NATO summit’s final communique declared that “Ukraine’s future is in NATO” and that Kiev is on an “irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership,” but noted that the bloc would extend an invitation only “when Allies agree and conditions are met.”
This was the same verbiage used last year in Vilnius, Lithuania. The government in Kiev responded with fury at the lack of a formal invitation, with Vladimir Zelensky firing off a series of angry social media posts accusing NATO of weakness and cowardice.
While Kiev was promised more weapons, ammunition and equipment going forward, it will take months and even years before they can be produced and delivered. Moscow has said that no amount of foreign aid can change the outcome of the Ukraine conflict, and that the West only unnecessarily prolongs the hostilities and risks direct confrontation.