BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A number of NATO members are waiting for the new U.S. administration to take office before making up their minds on Ukraine’s request for an invitation to join the U.S.-led transatlantic alliance, Latvia’s foreign minister said on Tuesday.
Kyiv has urged NATO foreign ministers to issue an invitation at a meeting in Brussels this week, but movement appears unlikely amid opposition from some capitals and the transition in Washington.
Donald Trump, the U.S. president-elect, has said he will end Russia’s war with Ukraine in a day, but his team’s plans for Ukraine policy remain unclear.
“In principle, we as political leaders have agreed that Ukraine will be a member,” Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braže told Reuters on the sidelines of the meeting.
“The issue is what conditions when, and obviously that is where the alliance has to come together. All allies, currently, everybody is waiting for the new U.S. administration to start working, so I think that is one aspect that is said or unsaid, but it’s a reality.”
Braže, a former senior NATO official, said Ukraine’s battle-hardened military would be an asset for NATO, and that her country would be in favour of inviting Ukraine to join if a decision was on the table.
“A number of countries don’t necessarily feel comfortable inviting a country at war to join NATO,” the minister said, adding: “We are more flexible.”
(Reporting by Lili Bayer and Andrew Gray; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
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