NewDelhi Mar 22 : Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday took a dig at North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and said it is high time now that the alliance “accept Ukraine” membership or openly announce that it was “scared of Russia”.
“NATO should either say now that they are accepting us, or openly say that they are not accepting us as they are scared of Russia, which is true,” Zelenskyy said in an interview to Suspilne, a Ukrainian public broadcaster, as reported by The Kyiv Independent.
Earlier, Zelenskyy said that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if his country would have been a member of the NATO. “If we were a NATO member, a war wouldn’t have started. I would like to receive security guarantees for my country, for my people. If NATO members are ready to see us in the alliance, then do it immediately because people are dying on a daily basis,” CNN quoted Zelenskyy as saying during an exclusive interview on Sunday.
“But if you are not ready to preserve the lives of our people, if you just want to see us straddle two worlds, if you want to see us in this dubious position where we don’t understand whether you can accept us or not — you cannot place us in this situation, you cannot force us to be in this limbo,” Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy also said he demanded clarity on NATO’s stance on accepting Ukraine in the alliance. “I requested them personally to say directly that we are going to accept you into NATO in a year or two or five, just say it directly and clearly, or just say no. And the response was very clear, you’re not going to be a NATO member, but publicly, the doors will remain open,” Ukraine President Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy further said that he was ready for negotiation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but warned that the failure of such attempts could lead to a “Third World War”. “I am ready for negotiations with him. I was ready for the last two years. And I think that without negotiations, we cannot end this war. If there’s just one per cent chance for us to stop this war, I think that we need to take this chance,” Zelenskyy said.