Gates: The West did not fulfill its obligations to Ukraine under the Budapest Memorandum
The Budapest Memorandum became one of those international agreements which is not implemented in the way that they should be, as stated by the former United States Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, at the YES summit in Kyiv.
"The Government which was working in the U.S.A. at the time of signing of the Budapest Memorandum, was working without me,” Gates said.
“But the deal was that if Ukraine abandoned nuclear weapons, their security would be guaranteed. And if we look at this in the context of where we are now, I can say that the West has not fulfilled its obligations," he stated.
At the same time he added that he doesn’t know why France and Germany are participating in the Normandy Group, but Britain and the U.S.A., who were guarantors of Ukraine’s integrity under the Budapest Memorandum, are staying on the sidelines.
Yesterday, at the opening of the first day of the YES Summit, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called for the countries of the Budapest Memorandum to sign new agreements. The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances as a result of Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was signed on 5 December 1994 by the leaders of Ukraine, the U.S.A., Russia and Great Britain.