Ukraine has offered to sign an international agreement on security guarantees: key points
During the negotiations with the Russian side in Istanbul (Turkey), the Ukrainian delegation presented a new international agreement on security guarantees for Ukraine.
This was stated at a briefing following the negotiations by the head of the Ukrainian delegation, People’s Deputy Davyd Arahamiya.
He noted that since the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine, it has become clear that the security system in Europe has cracked and is now not working.
Today we came out with an official offer, we worked on the format itself. I would like to inform you that we are not signing anything at all, we are just bringing our offers as negotiators to the Russian side about a new system of security guarantees for Ukraine. We insist that it has to be an international agreement, which will be signed by all security guarantors, which will be ratified, so as not to repeat the mistake that was in the Budapest Memorandum, – Arahamiya said.
According to him, the guarantor countries will in fact act in the same way as prescribed by NATO’s Article 5 on Collective Defense.
The key provisions of the agreement on security guarantees for Ukraine offered by Kyiv are as follows:
1. If Ukraine becomes the object of any aggression or military attack, military operation, immediate consultations of the guarantor countries must take place within three days. These countries will have a legal obligation to provide military assistance to Ukraine, send troops, armaments or close the sky if diplomatic consultations fail.
2. The guarantor countries shall be, in particular, the member States of the United Nations Security Council. These are the following countries: Great Britain, China, Russian Federation, France, Turkey, USA, Italy, Germany, Canada, Poland, Israel.
3. International security guarantees will not yet work in the territory of ORDLO (in the temporarily occupied territories of Donbass) and in the occupied Crimea.
4. All guarantor countries should not object to Ukraine’s accession to the European Union, but rather support it.
5. Ukraine undertakes not to deploy military bases, military contingents of other states on its territory, to join military-political alliances (i.e. actually withdraws from NATO membership). Military exercises on the territory of our state will be held with the consent of the guarantor countries.
6. The issue of Crimea will be a separate clause of the agreement. Now, it is proposed to fix the positions of Ukraine and Russia, and for 15 years to hold separate bilateral negotiations on the status of the Crimean peninsula and Sevastopol. In a separate paragraph, the Ukrainian delegation proposes to note that during this time of negotiations, Ukraine and Russia will not use military forces to resolve the issue of Crimea.
7. The issues of the territory of the ORDLO (occupied territories of Donbass), specified in a separate clause, will be discussed in the framework of negotiations between the Presidents of Ukraine and the Russian Federation.
We offer to freely join the guarantee agreement. That is, if other countries want to join, we will give them such a legal right… This is the system on the basis of which we want to build a new future for Ukraine in terms of security, – Arahamiya said.
According to him, some guarantor countries have already given their prior consent to join the agreement.
The agreement on security guarantees for Ukraine is offered to be implemented according to the following procedure: holding a referendum in which Ukrainians will express their position; then – ratification by the parliaments of the guarantor countries and the parliament of Ukraine.
