Anders Fogh Rasmussen made the statement at a major policy conference in Warsaw on Thursday, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
Denmark’s Rassmussen, who led NATO between 2009 and 2014, told the Congress 590 event in the Polish capital that “time has come to move Ukraine into a safe place – as we are doing with Finland and Sweden.”
The former NATO chief noted that in 2008, at a summit in Bucharest, Romania, NATO allies decided that Ukraine and Georgia would become members of the alliance in the future.
Rasmussen said the two countries had been put in “the waiting room” for NATO membership.
NATO should put Ukraine ‘on path towards membership’
The Danish politician said that, at its summit in Vilnius, Lithuania on July 11-12, NATO should move Ukraine from “the waiting room” to “a path towards NATO membership.”
Rasmussen added that he was personally in favour of “extending an invitation” to Ukraine to join NATO, the IAR news agency reported.
He conceded that it would be the first time for NATO to invite a war-torn country to join the alliance and therefore he said the issue required "prudent consideration."
Poland’s warnings about Russia should have been ‘taken more seriously’
Rasmussen also said that Poland and the Baltic states had been warning “for decades” about the threat posed by Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
He told the audience in Warsaw that while sifting through his old notes some time ago, he found the text of a speech delivered at NATO’s 2008 Bucharest summit by Poland’s then-President Lech Kaczyński.
In the address, the late Lech Kaczyński warned fellow NATO leaders that if left unopposed, Putin would attack Georgia, and then go on to assault Ukraine, the Baltic states and eventually also Poland, Rasmussen told the conference.
“I wish his words had been taken more seriously at the time,” Rasmussen said, as quoted by the IAR news agency.
Ukraine must be offered ‘accelerated path’ to NATO: retired British Army general
Meanwhile, a former senior NATO commander told the Congress 590 conference that Ukraine should be offered “an accelerated path towards NATO membership,” according to news outlets.
Sir Richard Shirreff, a retired British Army general and former NATO deputy supreme commander for Europe, said on Wednesday that providing military equipment, ammunition, training and other military support must become a collective "NATO strategy” rather than be subject to bilateral agreements between Ukraine and individual NATO allies.
He argued that Ukraine should be offered “an accelerated path towards NATO membership” at the alliance's 2024 summit in Washington.
Meanwhile, NATO's 2023 summit in Vilnius must be “a demonstration of strength” of the Western military alliance, Shirreff said.
The retired British general told the Warsaw conference that Russia’s full-scale invasion was a war not just against Ukraine, but also against the West and against Ukraine’s bid to become a part of the West, the IAR news agency reported.
The 2023 Congress 590 conference took place on Wednesday and Thursday and was the eighth edition of the annual event, according to officials.
This year, the conference focused on international economic cooperation amid geopolitical changes caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, regional security and energy, the IAR news agency reported.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, launching the largest military campaign in Europe since World War II.
Thursday is day 484 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, polskieradio24.pl, Congress 590