German Chancellor opposes granting NATO membership to Ukraine and Georgia

PanARMENIAN.Net - German Chancellor Angela Merkel signaled she opposes granting North Atlantic Treaty Organization membership to former Soviet republics Ukraine and Georgia.



"A country should become a NATO member not only when its temporary political leadership is in favor but when a significant percentage of the population supports membership," Merkel said in Berlin in reference to Ukraine and Georgia.



"Countries that are themselves entangled in regional conflicts, can in my opinion not become members," she added after talks with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.



Kyev and Tbilisi are expected to use the NATO military alliance's April 2-4 summit in Romania to confirm that they are candidates to join the alliance but their chances of securing a formal invitation seem remote.



Ukraine's leaders have asked to join NATO's Membership Action Plan, but public opinion at home is largely against the move, the AFP reports.



Merkel's remarks came just a few hours after Georgia's foreign minister, Davit Bakradze, told journalists in Tbilisi that there was not a single NATO member-state "openly declaring its opposition to Georgia's NATO membership." He did, however, acknowledge that there was no consensus within the alliance about when to extend MAP to Georgia and Ukraine.



In Georgia, the public is largely in favor of NATO membership, but the alliance was made uneasy by the state of emergency the government imposed in December to end opposition protests.