KYIV. July 4 (Interfax) - Ukraine expects its prospects of becoming a member of NATO to be confirmed at the alliance's July summit, according to Oleksiy Henchev, the head of the department for cooperation with NATO of the government office for the European and Euro-Atlantic integration of the Ukrainian government's secretariat.
"For Ukraine, an undeniably positive expectation would be a statement from NATO regarding a confirmation of the declaration of the Bucharest summit of 2008 that Ukraine will be a member of the alliance," Henchev said during a round table in Kyiv on Tuesday.
At the same time, he emphasized that the Ukrainian side does not expect a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) to be proposed at the summit. "Our objective is not asking for a MAP, but carrying out reforms to be worthy of this MAP," Henchev said.
As for what the Ukrainian side will bring to the NATO summit, he said that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko had prepared a package of information and practical initiatives. "This is about our troops participating in NATO operations: the missions in Kosovo and Afghanistan, 40 and 11 troops, respectively. It's been decided to increase the size of the contingent in Afghanistan to 29. This isn't a political signal, it's an increase of experience and an improvement of our troops' combat capacities," he said.
Henchev also said that Kyiv wants to join the enhanced opportunities program, in which Australia, Finland, Georgia, Jordan, and Sweden already participate.
"At present, Ukraine receives as much assistance as possible from NATO, but this program would enable our troops to boost compatibility with the alliance's armies," he said.
The NATO summit will take place in Brussels on July 11-12.