KIEV
The Ukrainian parliament voted Tuesday to cancel the country’s non-aligned status, enabling it to join NATO in the future.
Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko told the press last week he would seek membership in NATO, a Western military alliance, because of pro-Russia separatists’ undermining of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
President Poroshenko submitted the bill to parliament on Thursday Dec. 18 for voting.
The legislation was supported by 303 out of 357 lawmakers in parliament.
Under Russian pressure in 2010, Ukraine adopted non-aligned status, which prevented it from joining military alliances.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin made a statement to the press after the parliamentary decision and said that the cancellation of Ukraine’s non-aligned status would lead to the country's integration into the Euro-Atlantic.
Klimkin said that the cancellation of his nation's non-aligned status would create more efficient foreign policy mechanisms and would allow the country to act in accordance with its national interests.
Alexander Zakharchenko, prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, stated that Ukraine’s decision would lead to negative results.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev wrote on Monday on a social network site that Ukraine’s decision meant it had applied for NATO membership, which would turn Ukraine into Russia’s potential enemy.
Medvedev also criticized the United States’ President Barack Obama for signing a new sanction law against Russia, which will “poison relations for decades.”
He stated that both decisions would lead to negative results.
Meanwhile Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov also slammed the decision: "This is counterproductive, it only escalates the confrontation, creating the illusion that correcting the deep political crisis in Ukraine can only be adopting such laws."
"A much more productive and meaningful way is to finally start a dialog with a part of their people, whom they ignored when they were carrying out a coup d'etat" he said.
"There is no other way. Only constitutional reform with all regions and political forces in Ukraine can set the proper tone."
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