BRUSSELS, Belgium -- NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said that during his visit to Ukraine, he plans to discuss Ukraine's possible participation in the NATO missile defense system.
"What I would like to discuss during my visit to Ukraine is the question of Ukraine's possible contribution to the Euro-Atlantic architecture of a missile defense system," he told Ukrainian reporters in Brussels on Thursday.
He said that the decision to create such a system had been made relatively recently.
"We have not yet completed the final design of the architecture, [and] we are at the initial stage of this process. Only two or three months have passed after NATO decided to develop a system on the basis of NATO," he said.
Rasmussen recalled that Russia had been invited to cooperate in this project at the alliance's summit in Lisbon, Portugal.
"What we've done during the summit is initiate a joint analysis of Russia-NATO relations as to how we can realize this practical cooperation. If other Euro-Atlantic partners offer their participation and their potential to the architecture of the missile defense system, then, of course, we will take this into account. It is too early to give a definitive answer to how this architecture will develop, and this will depend on the contribution of Ukraine and other partners," he said.
As reported, Rasmussen said that he would pay a one-day visit to Ukraine on February 24.
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