WASHINGTON: The United States won’t make special arrangements for Ukraine to join the Nato military alliance, President Joe Biden said on Saturday.

“They’ve got to meet the same standards. So we’re not going to make it easy,” the US president told reporters near Washington.

The comments come before Nato leaders are set to meet in Lithuania next month.

In a symbolic step, alliance leaders are aiming to hold a first session of a Nato-Ukraine Council with President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, the alliance’s chief Jens Stoltenberg said in Brussels on Friday.

The meeting will give Kyiv a more equal seat at the table “to consult and decide on security issues”, Stoltenberg said. But he added that though Nato will tighten political ties with Ukraine at the summit, there will be no talk of membership for Kyiv.

“We’re not going to discuss an invitation at the Vilnius summit, but how we can move Ukraine closer to Nato,” Stoltenberg said.

“I’m confident that we will find a good solution and consensus.”

NATO nations in eastern Europe have pushed for a better roadmap for Ukraine to obtain membership, but key allies like the United States and Germany have been reluctant to go much beyond a vague 2014 pledge that Kyiv will join one day.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, however, had suggested on Friday it was possible some requirements for membership could be eased if Ukraine was eventually ready to join.

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2023