UKRAINE JOINING NATO MEMBERSHIP ACTION PLAN

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Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko, Verkhovna Rada Chairman Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko addressed a letter to the NATO Secretary General on Ukraine's accession to the NATO Membership Action Plan, UKRINFORM reported citing the President's official website.

Since restoration of independence in 1991, the letter reads, Ukraine has made a long way towards rapprochement with NATO, from fruitful cooperation within the framework of the Partnership for Peace Program and special relations in the format of the Distinctive Partnership Charter, to effective interaction in the frames of the Ukraine - NATO Action Plan, and the Intensified Dialogue on the issue of membership and appropriate reforms.

Fully sharing European democratic values, Ukraine feels itself a part of the Euroatlantic space of security, and is ready, together with NATO and partners from the Alliance, to counteract common security challenges on equal terms.

That is why Ukraine will be deepening and extending this area of cooperation with the Alliance, while securing its future participation in peacekeeping operations under NATO auspices, the Ukrainian leaders say.

Profound and irretrievable democratic changes have become objective prerequisites for the settlement of the important questions of principle for full achievement of all criteria required for membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The Ukrainian leaders voiced hope that Ukraine's progress made in the frames of the Intensified Dialogue on membership and reforms issue will be soon acknowledged by the Alliance. Ukraine has a stake in joining the NATO Membership Action Plan.

We are hoping that the level of this country's preparedness for its new commitments will pave the ground for a positive answer during the Ukraine - NATO summit in Bucharest in April 2008, the letter says.

UKRINFORM