Bush plan to visit Ukraine raises concern within Nato

UKRAINE: US PRESIDENT George W Bush is set to travel to Ukraine ahead of a high-profile Nato summit in Bucharest next month, raising the stakes in a dispute within the alliance over how quickly the former Soviet state should proceed towards membership.

The US is pushing hard for Ukraine and Georgia to gain entry to Nato's membership action plan at the summit in three weeks' time, say western diplomats.

But they add Germany, France, Greece, Italy, Norway and Spain are resisting the move, a significant milestone on the road to full membership, amid sharp differences over its implications for the alliance's relations with Russia.

They fear awarding action-plan status to the former Soviet states would worsen relations between Russia and the West, already hit by US plans to deploy a missile defence system in the Czech Republic and Poland. Russian president Vladimir Putin, who will also be attending the Nato summit, has suggested that Moscow could target Ukraine with missiles if it joined the alliance or hosted US missile defence bases.

The US has appeared keen to avoid a public dispute with its Nato allies over the issue.

But yesterday, the White House was due to announce Mr Bush's plans to visit Ukraine before the summit, as well as a trip to Croatia - expected to become a full Nato member at the gathering, with Macedonia and Albania.

Nato enlargement to the east is seen as an important "legacy" issue for some Bush administration officials, who also insist the alliance must not be pushed off-course by Russian intransigence.

However, German chancellor Angela Merkel this week signalled her concern about Nato's enlargement, saying it should not involve countries "entangled in regional conflicts" - a clear reference to Georgia. Berlin plans a compromise that would see Nato offering Ukraine and Georgia a new status called the "action plan".

Oleg Rybachuk, an adviser to Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko, said: "We are moving into a different club and there is nothing they [ Russia] can do about it."

© 2008 Financial Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times