KIEV —? Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has scrapped a state body set up to oversee the country’s eventual accession to NATO, a presidential decree on his web site said Tuesday.
The decree said he had wound up a presidential commission for preparing Ukraine for membership in NATO — a body set up by his predecessor, Viktor Yushchenko, who was on poor terms with Moscow.
A separate decree said Yanukovych had also closed down an allied body overseeing Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration. Though both bodies exerted little influence on political reality, their closure sent a strong message to Moscow. Yanukovych held closed-door talks with President Dmitry Medvedev at the Russian leader’s Gorki residence outside Moscow on Monday.
(Reuters, MT)
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