The idea of maintaining Ukraine to preserve the neutral status and turning the country into the “bridge” between the East and the West ceased to exist, said US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger during a performance at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
“eight years ago, when the idea of Ukraine joined NATO appeared, I then wrote an article in which I noticed that it would be good for Ukraine to remain in a group of neutral countries that have become a bridge between the East and the West. But now this idea ceased to exist, ”RBC quoted the ex -head of the United States.
In his speech in Davos, 98-year-old Kissinger recalled the article that he published in the Washington Post in March 2014. It was called “How will the Ukrainian crisis end?” In this article, Kissinger noted that the main problem for the self -determination of Ukraine is that the public discussion on this issue is somehow reduced to confrontation. The choice is limited only by two options – whether Ukraine will join the east or west, however, such a statement of the question does not allow to resolve the crisis and puts Ukraine in an extremely vulnerable position in the future, the former Secretary of State wrote.
In order to “survive and flourish”, Ukraine should not be “an outpost of one of the parties against the other – it should function as a bridge between them,” he said. At the same time, Russia was supposed to accept that “attempts to turn Ukraine into a satellite state and due to this to move its boundaries again” only doom it to repeat “mutual pressure cycles in relations with Europe and the USA.” In turn, the West, as Kissinger wrote, was supposed to admit that Ukraine for Russia “will never be just one of the foreign countries,” since the history of these two countries is “closely intertwined.”
If the West and Russia, and the leadership of Ukraine continue to impose the will throughout the country’s geographical and cultural space, this can lead either to the Civil War or to the split of Ukraine, he warned. As a solution to the conflict, the former Secretary of State then proposed four principles:
to give Ukraine the right to freely choose its economic and political relations, including with Europe; refusal to enter Ukraine into NATO; The freedom of Ukraine to form any government that reflects the will of the Ukrainian people. In this matter, Kissinger proposed to focus on Finland; Russia must also recognize the sovereignty of Ukraine over the Crimea, and Ukraine must agree to strengthen its autonomy.