The joint communique expected out of the NATO leaders' summit this week will mention Ukraine is on a so-called irreversible path into the alliance but it will mostly be symbolic as the United States opposes guaranteeing Kiev entry into the alliance before it's sorted out corruption issues, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday, citing US officials.
According to the publication, several NATO members want to demonstrate that Ukraine is getting closer to a path of membership, but some officials acknowledged that this gesture of using the word "irreversible" in the forthcoming joint statement is more symbolic than substantive.
President Joe Biden has stood in the way of NATO making any grander gesture of Ukraine's prospects of getting into the alliance, mostly because he wants to see Ukraine take meaningful steps to weed out corruption before it's promised any admittance. The US president initially rejected the idea of including language of Ukraine's path into NATO being irreversible, the report added.
Biden believes that if corruption is allowed to continue in Ukraine as it ascends into NATO, it could cause trouble for the entire alliance that may be hard to tackle, according to the report.
In April, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg during a visit to Kiev said Ukraine has a rightful place in NATO and that the alliance is working on placing it on an irreversible path toward membership in NATO when the time may be right.
Russia has repeatedly said it stands against Ukraine's membership in NATO due to national security concerns, but never opposed Kiev's aspirations to join the European Union.