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Press TV has conducted an interview with Rick Rozoff, manager of "Stop NATO" Network, Chicago about the rush for the new government in Ukraine to sign the EU pact previously rejected by the former administration of the country.

- First of all, why do you think that the new government in Kiev is in such a hurry to sign this association pact with the EU?

- I think you’re being too charitable in referring to the ruling clique in Kiev right now as government. I think terms like ‘regime’ or even ‘junta’ would be more appropriate. Even out of politeness, ‘government’ is stretching it a bit.

The regime now of Yatsenyuk, I think we should know immediately by the way that his first trip abroad was just recently a few days ago to Brussels where he went to the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) at a press conference with the Secretary General of NATO Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

He effectively invited the North Atlantic Council, which is the top planning body of NATO to come to Kiev Ukraine, for the time ever.

And now we see that Mr. Yatsenyuk is heading to the United States very shortly. He went to Brussels as he is going to Washington, to receive his marching orders. He is nothing other than a proxy for the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Why is he in such a hurry to sign the association agreement with the European Union under the auspices of a program called ‘Eastern Partnership’? Because those are his orders.

And he has to sign them before the presidential election because on the off-chance that the election doesn’t turn out according to American plans they want to make sure they have the association agreement, which includes by the way a very strong military component to further integrate Ukraine into NATO and US military nexus.

That’s important to know.

- The former German chancellor Schroeder has also slammed the European Union for applying so much pressure on Kiev to sign this pact. Do you think that the regime, as you point out, in Kiev is doing it out of pressure or it has been the agenda of people like Yatsenyuk from the get-go?

- It’s a combination of the two, but I’m sure your viewers and listeners recall that the video tape that surfaced a few weeks ago with US Assistant Secretary of State for European an Eurasian Affairs Victoria Newland giving orders to the American ambassador in Kiev Geoffrey Pyatt as to who would be the next prime minister of Ukraine – and she mentioned precisely Yatsenyuk. And that’s exactly the role he has right now.

The US ordered the coup; the US ordered the head of the junta to be Mr. Yatsenyuk and now he is receiving his orders, again from NATO and from Washington.

Let’s be perfectly clear about this. This was not a legal or a reasonable transformation of political power in Kiev. It was an armed coup d’état by nationalist and racist extremists for the most part, using violence that resulted in the death of at least 13 police officers.

And it’s precisely this sort of neo-fascist putsch that has led to the regime change in Ukraine with all the dangerous military repercussions we’re talking about including the fact that we may now see US and NATO military bases and interceptor missiles stationed within miles of the Russian border in Ukraine.

- Speaking of which, right now when you look at the US mainstream media specifically and what the Western officials are portraying it, it seems as if Russia is the aggressor here; but from the way you put it and looking at the situation as a whole it seems the instigation comes from another party.

- Precisely that. There was to have been a presidential election, a federal election in Ukraine 11 months from now – February of next year (2015). It is not as though if there was such a burning need for political change in Ukraine people could not have waited for 10 or 11 months and voted differently in next year’s election.

What in fact occurred was a matter of some urgency because the legally elected internationally recognized president of the country Viktor Yanukovych who was overthrown in a coup d’état at the threat of his life apparently, he has now fled the country - He refused on November 21st to sign the association agreement we’re speaking about, which was referred to by fomer German chancellor Gerhard Schroder.

And we have to recall that he said recently very strongly that the EU insisted that should Ukraine sign the association agreement, which is now going to happen under the auspices of the US proxy regime in Kiev, then that would necessarily preclude Ukraine joining the projected Customs Union with Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and perhaps Armenia.

This is economic warfare against Russia, it’s an attempt to destroy what remains of a Commonwealth of independent states that is the post-Soviet economic formation. And it is an attempt to further integrate Ukraine into the US-NATO military network.

That is I think the most important matter to understand in this transformation of the last month.