The Fire of Liberty is burning brighter in Ukraine with Secretary of State Rice meeting with members of NATO in Vilinus to discuss plans to allow the former Soviet Republic membership in NATO. See what this article from The Financial Times has to say about this historic event:
Boris Tarasyuk, Ukraine's foreign minister, said he expected Ukraine to meet the conditions for Nato membership by 2008 following the agreement to intensify contacts between Kiev and Nato in the wake of the peaceful revolution that brought President Viktor Yushchenko to power. “One cannot stop the movement of Ukraine,” he said.May the forces of freedom march into the other tyrannies of the World as it did in The Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Anything is possible.
The US and Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Nato's secretary-general, backed Kiev's membership goal but refused to give a timetable and emphasised that it was Ukraine's responsibility to carry out necessary reforms.
“If states fulfil the criteria then Nato fulfils its promise to offer membership,” said Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state.
Some Nato members, principally France, remain wary of putting Ukraine on the fast track to membership. But acceptance of Kiev's Nato ambitions came even from Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, a country that has traditionally viewed Ukraine as part of its natural sphere of influence. “It would be the choice of Ukraine to choose its partners and it is the sovereign matter of Ukraine,” he said.
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