Komorowski: Don't rule out Ukraine in NATO

His comments countered arguments made by US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, who told the American Senate's Committee on Armed Services on Wednesday that no plans should be laid for Ukraine to join NATO.

Brzezinski had argued however that Western countries should provide Ukraine with "defensive" weapons to counter Russian intervention.

Poland joined NATO in 1997, and although Komorowski acknowledged that Ukraine's membership is hard to imagine at present, Kiev should not lose hope.

''We [Poles] succeeded, but under somewhat different conditions,'' he said in an interview with public broadcaster TVP.

''Today, Ukraine would undoubtedly not meet all of these conditions, or obtain the consent of all NATO countries, but this is no reason to say to Ukraine 'never'."

Merkel reaches out to Russia

Meanwhile, Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel spoke of a more cooperative future with Russia on Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Although Merkel argued that by its annexation of Crimea and the backing of rebels in Eastern Ukraine, Moscow had broken “elementary principles of the European peaceful order,” she alluded to a more constructive long-term relationship, if Russia could help bring about peace in the region.

''Later on, in the bigger picture, we can try to explore possibilities of cooperation, and an economic area that President Putin himself called ‘from Vladivostok to Lisbon,’” she said, referencing a proposed free trade area that would link Russia with Western Europe. (nh)