Ukraine (bbabo.net), - Bulgarian President Rumen Radev did not joint statement of the presidents of nine Central and Eastern European countries because of disagreement with their position on Ukraine's membership in NATO, BTA reports.

On October 2, the Presidents of Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania and Slovakia - Andrzej Duda, Milos Zeman, Alar Karis, Egils Levits, Gitanas Nauseda, Stevo Pendarovski, Milo Djukanovic, Klaus Iohannis and Zuzana Čaputova - expressed support for Ukraine's accession to NATO.

“We strongly support the decision of the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008 regarding the future membership of Ukraine,” they said in a statement.

As explained in the press service of Radev, the statement following the meeting in Bucharest, in which Bulgaria was also a participant, was made "in a completely different security environment." It is required that Ukraine's entry into the ranks of the bloc does not lead to the risk of direct involvement of NATO countries in the conflict due to military operations on the territory of the republic.

In Art. 5 of the Washington Treaty enshrines the principle of collective defense. It means that an attack on one of the NATO members will be considered as an attack on all members of the bloc.

"The decision on Ukraine's entry into NATO should be made only after the development of clear parameters for a peaceful settlement of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which must be accepted and implemented by both states," the press service explained the president's position.

Bulgaria along with Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Estonia became a member of NATO in 2004.

On September 30, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Kyiv was applying for "accelerated entry into NATO." He made such a statement after the Kremlin signed agreements on the accession to Russia of the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics, as well as the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions.

Alliance Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg responded by saying that the bloc supports "Ukraine's right to choose its own path," but recalled that the decision must be made by all 30 countries of the bloc. The United States and Germany felt that now is not the right time for Ukraine to join NATO.

Moscow has repeatedly insisted on Ukraine's non-bloc status.

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