By Matt Spetalnick and Paul Taylor
BUCHAREST, April 1 (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush
vowed on Tuesday to press for Ukraine and Georgia to be allowed
to start the process of joining NATO despite resistance from
Russia and scepticism from the alliance's European members.
Bush, in Kiev on his way to his farewell NATO summit in
Romania beginning on Wednesday, said Moscow had no right to veto
bids by the two former Soviet republics to join the 26-nation
Western defence pact.
But French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Paris would
oppose giving Kiev and Tbilisi a "Membership Action Plan" -- a
roadmap to joining NATO -- to avoid upsetting the balance of
power with Russia. Germany shares those objections.
Bush told a news conference with Ukrainian President Viktor
Yushchenko: "In Bucharest this week, I will continue to make
America's position clear. We support MAP for Ukraine and
Georgia.
"Helping Ukraine move towards NATO membership is in the
interest of every member in the alliance and will help advance
security and freedom in this region and around the world."
Bush will repeat that message in a pre-summit speech on
Wednesday and add that "NATO membership must remain open to all
of Europe's democracies that seek it, and are ready to share in
the responsibilities of NATO membership."
On other summit issues, Greece said it was unlikely to
resolve a dispute over the name of NATO aspirant Macedonia in
time for the former Yugoslav republic to be invited to join the
alliance this week despite strong pressure from Washington.
And Fillon told parliament in Paris that France may send a
few hundred extra troops to Afghanistan to help NATO's biggest
military mission, apparently fewer than the 1,000 combat troops
President Nicolas Sarkozy was expected to announce in Bucharest.
France and Germany, backed by several smaller west European
allies, say Ukraine and Georgia do not meet NATO's criteria.
Public support in Ukraine for joining NATO is barely 30
percent, while Georgia does not control all of its territory
because of frozen conflicts with Moscow-backed separatists.
"POINT OF NO RETURN"
Russia denounces the bids on grounds that NATO is intruding
on its sphere of influence.
Moscow's envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, told Interfax news
agency: "The Membership Action Plan marks the point of no
return, in our opinion. If MAP is granted to Georgia and Ukraine
... our relations would take a dramatic turn."
President Vladimir Putin is due to attend the NATO summit on
Friday and has invited Bush to his holiday home in Sochi on the
Black Sea afterwards to discuss a "legacy agreement" on future
arms control.
Diplomats have sketched a possible trade-off, in which
Moscow would grudgingly accept U.S. plans to deploy an
anti-missile defence shield in central Europe and Washington
would accept a delay in the Georgian and Ukrainian NATO bids.
But Bush underscored his resolve to back the applications.
He dismissed as a "misperception" any trade-off -- shelving
support for MAP bids to win agreement to deploy interceptor
rockets and a radar in Poland and the Czech Republic.
The president said he hoped proposals to make the missile
defence system more transparent would yield progress at his
weekend meeting with Putin.
Bush will also say in his pre-summit speech on Wednesday
that NATO's top priority must be fighting al Qaeda and Osama
bin Laden.
Speaking after talks with Romanian President Traian Basescu,
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the summit
showed "Afghanistan matters to the international community".
At a session on Thursday, NATO allies and other troop
contributors will meet U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and
Afghan President Hamid Karzai to discuss better coordination of
military, civilian, development and humanitarian efforts.
The head of the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services
Committee, Ellen Tauscher, said European allies must do much
more to help NATO defeat Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan,
where the alliance's credibility was at stake.
"While the U.S. is committing an additional 3,200 Marines,
NATO allies must commit at least 7,000 more combat troops to
secure the East and South of Afghanistan," she told a Bucharest
conference on the eve of the summit.
Basescu, the summit's host, urged NATO leaders to invite
Croatia, Albania and Macedonia to join, and to give three other
Western Balkans states -- Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro -- "a
clear perspective concerning their return to their rightful
place in the European and Euro-Atlantic community".
Speaking to reporters alongside Bush, Yushchenko said
Ukraine had made a clear choice on NATO.
"You will forgive me, but I would not like to see the key,
fundamental principle of the Alliance's activity, open doors, to
be replaced by a veto for a country which is not even a member."
(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell in Kiev, Justyna Pawlak
and Mark John in Bucharest and Francois Murphy in Paris; Editing
by Timothy Heritage)
