BERLIN, April 6 (UPI) -- The Ukrainian president has dissolved the government's commission working toward NATO membership, a sign that the country's ambitious pro-NATO course is over.
Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych per decree dissolved the commission this week, in a move that buries the ambitious pro-NATO policies by his predecessor, Orange Revolution hero Viktor Yushchenko.
Yushchenko's stark anti-Russian course helped Ukraine win new friends in Europe but angered Moscow and alienated the country's Russian-speaking community. Under the new president, Ukraine could become a key link between both worlds, supporters of the new government hope.
Observers see the latest move as a bid to restart relations with Moscow, which strongly opposes Ukraine's NATO ambitions.
A Ukrainian expert said the move could strain relations with NATO.
"It's quite a sharp statement," Natalia Bugayova of the Kiev Post newspaper told Deutsche Welle. "Dissolving the commission which was to prepare Ukraine for joining NATO is quite a radical move and I think it will certainly exacerbate the relationship with the West."
Western observers, however, are not too concerned.
"NATO won't be too displeased because this step has been expected," Stefan Meister, a political expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations, a Berlin think tank, told United Press International in a telephone interview Tuesday. "Other cooperation with the alliance will not cease."
Ukraine, not a NATO member, has participated in every one of the alliance's major operations of the past years -- in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Operation Active Endeavour, the sea-based NATO anti-terror mission.
Kiev will continue this approach, said Kostiantyn Yeliseyev, the country's deputy foreign minister, but not press for membership anytime soon.
"We prefer to do our homework and fulfill our obligations instead of making false and empty declarations that we will be a NATO member on this or that date," Yeliseyev told the Euractiv news Web site.
Since being inaugurated in February, Yanukovych has made it clear he wants to improve ties with Ukraine's powerful neighbor Russia. At the same time, he has been careful not to alienate the West, choosing Brussels as his first foreign trip.
Meister said shelving the accession commission was a further sign of this diplomatic tightrope walk, a move directed not so much against NATO, but to please Moscow.
"Ukraine wants something from Russia -- and that's lower gas prices and financial loans."
Ukraine, a major energy transit country to Europe, has severe budget problems. It has trouble paying the bills for imported Russian gas, which has led to several price rows with Moscow. One such conflict last year temporarily halted supplies to Europe, damaging Kiev's reputation as a reliable transit partner.
Kiev will try to negotiate a new gas price deal with the Kremlin, and the latest step is expected to soothe Moscow, observers say.
