KIEV, March 9 (RIA Novosti, Pavel Dulman) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko proposed Thursday holding referenda on the country's accession to NATO and the European Union.
"Everybody understands that no one can join NATO, or the EU, or any international body without the prior consent of the people," Yushchenko said, addressing students at a leading university.
At the same time, he appealed to all political forces in Ukraine to avoid playing the NATO card before the parliamentary elections in March this year.
Ukraine, Russia's western neighbor and once a close ally within the former Soviet Union, has repeatedly expressed its intention to follow in the footsteps of other eastern European nations by joining the alliance and the EU. Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Volodymyr Khandogiy previously mentioned 2008 as a possible date for the country's accession to NATO.
Speaking on Ukrainian television in February, a NATO official said that Ukraine's membership prospects would be contingent on parliamentary elections.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov earlier said that Ukraine could destabilize its domestic situation by joining NATO.
"Ukraine's possible accession to NATO is a very sensitive issue," Ivanov, who is also a deputy prime minister, told La Stampa newspaper ahead of a visit to Rome in February. "Attempts to drastically reorient [itself] toward Western values could prove a major destabilization factor, above all for Ukrainian society, since a year of democratic reform has not yielded noticeable results."
