Treaty on Security Guarantees offers effective tool to protect Ukraine’s territory, sovereignty - official

The Treaty on Security Guarantees offers, not in theory, but in practice, to obtain an effective tool for protecting the territory and sovereignty of Ukraine.

This was stated by the adviser to the head of the Ukrainian President’s Office, member of the Ukrainian negotiating delegation, Mykhailo Podoliak, in a commentary for the media.

"Istanbul allowed fixating a number of important treaty positions that Russia took into consideration. The Treaty on Security Guarantees, in fact, implies, not in theory, but in practice, obtaining an effective tool for protecting our territory and sovereignty," Podoliak said.

He stressed that the world’s leading armies, including those with a nuclear component, become guarantor nations, which assumes specific legal obligations – to intervene in any conflict on the territory of Ukraine, as well as to immediately supply weapons if necessary.

"I must say that this treaty also allows us to start revising the old model of global security, which has not proved effective in the current situation, and move on to more effective models. Ukraine looks strong precisely as initiator of the reform of the global security architecture," the adviser to the head of the Presidential Office suggested.

At the same time, Podoliak said that Ukraine received guarantees that it would join the EU’s single market as a full member. He noted the importance of such developments, both in terms of financing large-scale programs for economy modernization, and in terms of abandoning excessive bureaucratic procedures on the way to joining the EU.

“I would like to say separately that the presence of Russia, along with the United States, Great Britain, Turkey, Germany, and other countries, as a signatory to a multilateral treaty imposes many additional burdens on Russians and allows us not to go for a complicated bilateral format. Only within the framework of a multilateral treaty can one avoid the traditional Russian posture to ignore legal agreements," Podoliak added.

In addition, the official said that direct bilateral negotiations on the Crimea issue and fixating the existing situation for 15 years is a revolutionary proposal. Podoliak clarified that this means, at a minimum, the return of the topic of Crimea to the negotiating agenda. According to him, earlier the Russians categorically denied this. "And besides, it allows us to preserve the current legal interpretations of Crimea, since for us Crimea is, of course, part of Ukraine," the adviser to the head of the Presidential Office added.

In this context, he stressed that the rejection of mutual military escalation as regards the Crimea issue is the key to a general cessation of war.

As reported, on March 29, a face-to-face round of negotiations between the Ukrainian and Russian delegations took place in Istanbul. After the talks, the Ukrainian delegation voiced a number of proposals regarding the further settlement of the Russian-Ukrainian war.