NATO seeks to enhance partnership with countries for years being in Alliance’s missions

Barbora Maronkova, Director of NATO Information and Documentation Centre in Kyiv made a corresponding statement on the air of the DOM Ukrainian TV channel, commenting on granting Enhanced Opportunity Partner status to Ukraine.

She noted that the North Atlantic Council, which is the highest decision making body of NATO, had reached an agreement to recognize Ukraine as a so-called Enhanced Opportunity Partner on June 12. “What it means is that Ukraine has access to a tailor-made cooperation program with NATO. This is a program which is pretty much focused on the military technical side of cooperation.  It is part of a wider initiative, which is called interoperability platform which we created already in 2014. We created this platform to be able to continue military cooperation with many partners around the world,” Maronkova stressed.

According to the Director of NATO Information and Documentation Centre in Kyiv, “we were looking for something which we can offer to our partners, who have been with us in our military operations, who were fighting with us shoulder to shoulder all those years. So not to lose this special cooperation, this special partnership that bonded our military.” Currently, this wide type of program includes Ukraine, Sweden, Finland, Georgia, Australia and Jordan.

“We are looking to enhance our partnership with countries that have for years being with us NATO in our missions and operations. Partner countries which have worked with us in different situations, different conflicts and who do a lot of training exercise with us. What it means in practice is if you imagine for example Ukrainian soldiers and you join our NATO troops in Afghanistan or you serve with us in Kosovo you work together. In order to be able to work together, you need to be able to have the so-called interoperability of your forces, equipment, of how you take commands. You need to understand each other, to be able to work together.  This is why it is important both for the member states and the partner countries to have this ability to continue to work together. Because as our Secretary General says – we are talking about cooperative security. That means, NATO cannot face the security challenges of today alone. We need partners. If we have partners we can be stronger together,” Maronkova said.

As reported, the Enhanced Opportunity Partnership is part of the NATO initiative to strengthen the operational compatibility of the troops of its member states with the forces of the Alliance. NATO launched this program in 2014. Ukraine was granted EOP status on June 12.

ol