Hungary blocks meeting of Ukraine-NATO Commission

15.02.2018, Brussel.

The meeting of the Ukraine-NATO commission will not take place at the upcoming gathering of defense ministers of NATO member countries. This follows from the meeting agenda announced by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg during a press conference on February 13, TASS reports.

Hungary blocked the Ukraine-NATO Commission meeting due to a new education law adopted by Kiev. Commenting on this situation, the NATO Secretary General recommended to the President of Ukraine to heed the criticism of this new education law, urging him to come to the agreement with countries whose nationals’ rights were infringed by this law in Ukraine.

The meeting of NATO defense ministers begins on February 14, and will last two days. A decision to set up new military headquarters, as well as a logistic command center to move forces across Europe, will be taken at this meeting. The main objective of the Alliance’s new headquarters is aimed at the protection of naval communications and communication facilities between the US and Europe.

As for the new center of logistic command, according to Stoltenberg, “improving the movement of troops and equipment is essential to our collective deterrence and defence”. The forthcoming meeting will not determine yet the concrete location of the two new centers of an Atlantic command and a logistics command. Defense ministers will discuss only issues regarding the set up of the new centers.

In addition, creation of a training center in Iraq will be discussed during the meeting. “We all see a need for more training of Iraqi forces, because we are now turning away from the combat operations in the coalition to building local capacity enabling the Iraqis to make sure that Iraq is a stable country“, to build local capacity to ensure stability in the country.

From the very first day the nationalist forces came to power in Ukraine in 2014, they were fully supported by the Western countries and the NATO Alliance, despite clearly expressing adherence to neo-Nazi ideology. However, recently, pressure has been exerted on Kiev regarding the unwillingness of the Ukrainian authorities to implement full anti-corruption reforms.

In addition, a number of countries were outraged at the educational law adopted by Kiev, according to which the rights of all national minorities living in Ukraine were infringed on significantly.

Editorial comments

Altogether, NATO’s initiatives sound alarming for Russia. The establishment of a new Atlantic command with key objectives to defend the communications between North America and Europe, is being discussed. Without mentioning a country’s name, it is clear, however, that NATO has been discussing nothing else but deterrent measures against Russia. In addition, there is the second initiative to setting up a center for deploying military forces. Once more, without pointing out the country, it is clear to which state borders these forces are to be moved and deployed. NATO is going to deter no one in Europe, except Russia.

The fact that Ukraine was not invited to the meeting becomes an unexpected and painful sign for the Kiev authorities. It questionable whether the language infringements in respect to Hungarians living in Ukraine is the real reason. Given the continued escalation in relations between the West and Russia, it is quite possible that the insufficient anti-Russian activity by Ukraine causes discontent on the side of the Western patrons backing the Kiev authorities.

And, last but not least, there is an issue with the launching of a training mission in Iraq. The question is who will be trained, the Iraqi military or the remnants of terrorist groups destroyed in Syria? It is difficult to believe that the US and the West will be willing to leave Iraq in the hand of Iran.

Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency

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