NATO countries are demanding a say in what role the military alliance will play in any future peace agreement with Ukraine, after being largely sidelined from negotiations so far, Politico reports, writes UNN.
Details
While a deal remains a "moving target," some allies are insisting they have "red lines" they want to be consulted on first, according to four NATO diplomats. "These concern Ukraine's accession to the alliance, the deployment of troops and weapons on allied territory, and respect for international law," the publication writes.
"Ultimately, NATO will decide on NATO issues," Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen told the publication in an interview. Currently, "we are working with our partners and allies on the red lines," she indicated.
The new efforts come after European countries were surprised by a peace plan brokered by the US and Russia late last month, which was widely seen as favoring Moscow. Since then, Europeans have put forward their own counter-proposal, but a deal remains elusive, the publication writes.
NATO foreign ministers will meet in Brussels on Wednesday, giving countries their first real opportunity to discuss the contours of a peace plan within the alliance. The summit will take place a day after US envoy Steve Witkoff met with Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin for talks in Moscow.
"It is really important that the US leads these efforts," NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Tuesday. But "anything related to NATO mentioned in a war termination agreement will obviously be dealt with separately with NATO," he told reporters in Brussels.
While there is currently "no consensus" among alliance allies on Ukraine's accession to NATO, Rutte said, the organization's 1949 founding treaty, which theoretically supports an open-door policy for new countries, "is still in force."
An earlier draft of the plan placed strict conditions on the alliance, ordering it to stop accepting new members, commit not to deploy troops in Ukraine, and enshrine in its statutes a provision prohibiting Ukraine from ever joining, the publication notes.
Rutte said the peace agreement had "moved on" from these initial proposals. Valtonen also insisted that "many issues" from the first plan concerning Europe and NATO had been "crossed out" from later iterations.
But the European counter-proposal also included several conditions for the alliance: a non-aggression pact between NATO and Russia, a promise not to permanently deploy allied troops in Ukraine, and a commitment to station NATO fighter jets in Poland.
So far, "NATO has been on the sidelines," said Ed Arnold, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute think tank. He said this reduced role is partly due to geopolitics: its "involvement would provoke a broader issue with Russia, which the organization has so far been unwilling to do."
Putin again raised these fears on Tuesday, rattling sabers again. "We are not going to fight with Europe, I have said this a hundred times," he said before talks with Witkoff. "But if Europe wants to fight with us, we are ready to do it right now."
"Behind closed doors, some allies believe Washington could have consulted more with them on the peace process," the publication says.
On Monday, US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker officially briefed his fellow envoys on the negotiations for the first time, according to two NATO diplomats. The belated briefing came almost two weeks after the initial draft proposal was leaked.
Adding fuel to these fears is the fact that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will not attend Wednesday's meeting, and instead his deputy Christopher Landau will participate, the publication notes.
"Rubio's absence would send the wrong signal precisely when America needs to coordinate even more closely with its European allies," said Oana Lungescu, a former NATO spokeswoman, noting that the last time a US Secretary of State missed a NATO ministerial meeting was in 1999.
Publicly, NATO countries are ignoring the apparent slight. "I don't pay too much attention to signals" that Washington's top envoy missed the meeting, Valtonen said. "My colleague Rubio... is extremely busy," she indicated.
Privately, some allies would prefer Rubio to prioritize talks with Russia over meeting with the alliance if he had to choose, two NATO diplomats said, given that he is already seen as more attentive to European concerns about a peace deal.
Meanwhile, countries also need to decide what role the alliance will play after an agreement is signed, including whether to revive the NATO-Russia Council, its long-dormant forum for negotiations with Moscow.
"The real problem is how do we, as NATO, cooperate with the Russians on issues of mutual interest?" said one senior NATO diplomat. "Is the NATO-Russia Council still viable, or do we need to use the US as an intermediary?"