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Ambassador Kurt Volker I think when we talk about Ukraine and Georgia, we should first focus on what we all agree on. We all agree that they will eventually become members of NATO, that’s what the NATO heads of state and government decided at Bucharest. We also agree that they’re not ready for NATO membership today. They have a lot of work to do on their domestic reforms, on their defense reforms, on their work together with NATO. So we have a long road ahead of us. So we all agree also that we should be working with them, we should be trying to help them out, to help them go down that reform path. The problem that we have is that NATO’s best tool for doing this, what we created for this purpose, the Membership Action Plan, is now something that has become so politicized that we can’t agree to use it. So we’ve got to find a way forward where we actually are able to work with these countries and help them through this reform process that is necessary and will take some time to come. So what we’ve proposed is to put aside this debate of those countries that favor MAP and those countries that oppose the MAP, put that to one side and focus on moving ahead with the reforms that are necessary. That’s the way we’d like to do this. If we do that, I think we can deescalate the issue, we can avoid a confrontation and just get the work done that needs to be done. The problem is that if we don’t do that, then we’re going to face a crisis within NATO every time we meet. Is it MAP? Is it not MAP? What do we do? And I don’t think NATO needs that, and I also think that that creates a potential crisis with Russia every time NATO meets. Do we have MAP, don’t we have MAP? We ought to deescalate the situation, just do the business that’s necessary now, help these countries reform, keeping an eye focused on the fact that eventually they will become members of NATO and that’s already decided. # # # #
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