MOSCOW, June 4: Russia’s parliament recommended on Wednesday that the Kremlin consider pulling out of a friendship treaty with Ukraine if the ex-Soviet state takes further steps to join Nato.

Parliament’s resolution is not binding and the Kremlin has not expressed its position, but the move is likely to add pressure on Ukraine days before its pro-Western leader meets Russia’s new president, Dmitry Medvedev.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said “radical steps” would only serve to worsen relations between the neighbouring countries.

Moscow is opposed to Ukraine joining Nato, saying that would threaten Russian security and jeopardise an arrangement under which Russia leases Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Sevastopol as a base for its navy.

The pro-Kremlin parliament recommended the government withdraw from a 1997 friendship treaty if Ukraine was given a Nato Membership Plan, a roadmap to membership, or other steps were taken to speed up its accession to the alliance.

Scrapping the treaty could, in theory, open the way for Russia to mount a legal challenge to Ukraine’s sovereignty over Sevastopol. Kiev says it is part of its territory.

The treaty recognises the port as within Ukraine’s borders but Russian legal experts say without this document, the legal grounds for its status as part of Ukraine are shaky.

The Crimean peninsula, which includes Sevastopol, was part of the Russian republic of the Soviet Union until 1954, when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev signed it over to the Ukrainian republic. Some in Russia say Khrushchev’s decision was illegal.

Tymoshenko said at a scheduled news conference in Kiev her government wanted to establish friendly cooperation with Russia.

“It seems to me that every radical step taken only worsens the state of affairs between our two countries,” she said. “I think we ought to be looking for positive, not negative, things and carry out our international agreements.”

Russia’s State Duma, or lower house of parliament, voted by 408-5 to adopt a resolution on Ukraine that included the friendship treaty recommendation.

The Kremlin has a majority in the State Duma. It often uses the chamber to issue tough resolutions on disputes with its neighbours, a ploy analysts say is designed to strengthen the Kremlin’s negotiating position.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko is expected to meet Medvedev later this week at an informal summit of ex-Soviet states. —Reuters