Ukraine says Bush to visit before NATO summit
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush will visit Ukraine at the end of this month, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said on Thursday announcing a trip timed just days before a NATO decision on ties with the ex-Soviet state.
Yushchenko said Bush would make a state visit to Ukraine from March 31 to April 1, just ahead of an April 2-4 NATO summit in Bucharest due to decide whether to meet Kiev's request for a framework setting out steps towards possible membership.
"There is still a lot of work to be done about negotiations with different countries ... I am very optimistic about it," said Yushchenko of his country's NATO hopes during a trip to Brussels.
"We are not speaking about joining NATO today ... There were cases of countries that were three, five, eight years in the MAP," he said of the Membership Action Plan, the NATO framework which sets out the reforms required of aspiring members.
Russia is deeply opposed to Kiev's membership aspirations and several west European countries have reservations about encouraging its bid to join.
NATO allies are also set to discuss a similar request by Georgia, another ex-Soviet republic, at the Bucharest meeting.
Yushchenko said Moscow had nothing to fear from Kiev's aspirations to deepen ties with NATO.
"This is the sole right of our national sovereignty to choose that idea of national security. There are no extra threats for either of the neighboring states because no nuclear forces will be ever located as the constitution of Ukraine prohibits that," he said.
The two countries have support from ex-communist east European members and Baltic members of NATO but western European countries such as Germany and Luxembourg have doubts.
Yushchenko called on influential states to back Ukraine's NATO bid and said he had made "very good progress" in talks in Brussels.
"Particular support is paid by France in our aspirations towards collective security," he said.
The United States supports Ukraine's NATO ambitions but says questions remain over the timing of any steps.
"From the U.S. perspective, we have always believed it is not a question of whether, it is a question of when," U.S. Ambassador to NATO Victoria Nuland told a conference in Brussels late on Wednesday.
Yushchenko stressed that any final decision on membership would be taken by referendum in his country, where polls show strong public opposition to such a move.
Alliance skeptics cite NATO's poor image in Ukraine as a strong reason for not rushing into membership decisions. Georgia's case has been hurt by its heavy-handed treatment of opposition protests last year, diplomats said.
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom, writing by Mark John; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
