Ukraine Should Not join NATO Says Czech President
Conflict-ravaged Ukraine should remain neutral and stay out of NATO, pro-Russian Czech President Milos Zeman said during a visit to Kazakhstan on Tuesday.
"I strongly believe that Ukraine should become neutral and 'Finlandised'," the 70-year-old told the Czech news agency CTK in the capital Astana.
"Finlandisation" refers to a situation wherein a smaller state subordinates its foreign policy to that of a larger neighbor in exchange for independence -- as was the case with Finland after World War II, when it found itself in the shadow of the powerful Soviet Union.
Zeman said Ukraine should maintain its partnership with NATO, without becoming a full member of the Western defense alliance.
In office since 2013, the outspoken ex-communist is the first-ever directly elected president of the Czech Republic. The country, a member of both NATO and the EU, peacefully shed communism in 1989.
The West believes Russia is pulling the strings in the conflict between pro-Western government forces and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, which has so far claimed more than 4,300 lives.
Zeman however has repeatedly described it as "a civil war between two groups of Ukrainian citizens".
The Ukraine crisis has sparked a raft of sanctions and the worst tensions between the West and Russia since the Cold War.
Zeman said Tuesday he was "glad a gradual turnaround is under way" regarding Russia. "I can see this tendency is becoming stronger."
At a recent rally in Prague, protesters angry over Zeman's pro-Moscow foreign policy targeted him with apples and eggs. A part of an egg hit visiting German President Joachim Gauck in the head.
Source: Agence France Presse
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