The event will take place on June 8-9, 2015.
June 8 meeting participants were members of the Ukraine-NATO interparliamentary council; representatives of NATO and the OSCE, representatives of the Defense Ministry of Ukraine, National Security and Defense Council (NSDC), Ministry of Interior Affairs, and people's deputies.
The meeting started with reelection of Co-Head of the Ukraine-NATO interparliamentary council Raynell Andreychuk, who had so far been the acting co-head. Her candidacy was backed unanimously.
First Deputy Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada and Co-Chairperson of the Ukraine-NATO interparliamentary council Andrii Parubii said this opening the meeting of the interparliamentary council in Kyiv on Monday, June 8.
Parubii reminded that in 2008, the Bucharest summit acknowledged Ukraine's right to become a member of NATO to guarantee security in Ukraine and all around the world.
He said recently the Verkhovna Rada introduced amendments into the Laws of Ukraine on fundamentals of national security, on principles of internal and external policy, where it enshrined the priority of the Euro-Atlantic-oriented development of our country.
Parubii pointed to extremely important role of the Ukraine-NATO interparliamentary council "which is a bilateral monitoring body" "to provide effective promotion of Ukraine towards the Euro-Atlantic integration."
He welcomed representatives of almost 15 NATO member countries in the walls of the Verkhovna Rada.
In her keynote speech, Raynell Andreychuk thanked members of the Ukraine-NATO interparliamentary council for the right to head the meeting as a co-head.
According to Andreychuk, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly will always support Ukraine in its Euro-Atlantic aspirations, as it is one of the top-priority audiences of NATO. She said the Ukraine-NATO relations are quite strong.
Andreychuk noted that the NATO Parliamentary Assembly considers that the latest parliamentary election in Ukraine were conducted in compliance with international standards, which proved real strength of the newly created state.
In his speech, Minister of Defense Stepan Poltorak noted that over the last year, the Russian Federation has doubled its troops in Crimea to current 24,000 servicemen. Therefore, despite all international obligations, the risk of deployment of carriers of strategic nuclear weapons in the peninsula is very high.
According to Poltorak, recent events taking place near the population center of Mariyinka clearly indicate unwillingness of the militants and their Russian leaders to observe the Minsk agreements. At the same time, he said Ukraine continues to fully stand by the Minsk agreements.
The ministry stressed that the situation in the antiterrorist operation zone remains tensed.
Deputy Head of the Political Committee of the Ukraine-NATO interparliamentary council Jan Dziedziczak expressed common opinion saying that Russia's aggression threatens whole transatlantic region.
Reference information: the Ukraine-NATO interparliamentary council was founded on the basis of the Joint monitoring group of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in March 2003. The major task of the Council is the parliamentary facilitation of implementation of Annual national program, as well as the analysis of its implementation. The meeting of the Ukraine-NATO interparliamentary council is held twice a year: first in Brussels and than in Kyiv.