Poland vowed Friday to continue to back Ukraine in its bid to join the European Union and NATO, despite reservations on the part of other EU members to Ukraine's accession, Foreign Minister Adam Rotfeld said Friday.

"We will not give up our role of promoting Ukraine's European and Euro-Atlantic ambitions," Rotfeld told a press conference after meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Boris Tarassiuk.

"It's up to Ukraine to decide at what pace it wants to pursue its plan to join NATO," Rotfeld said, adding that the Ukrainian army has "undergone vast changes, in particular concerning its democratic control."

Tarassiuk stressed that Ukraine's cooperation with NATO, "which was developed under president Leonid Kuchma on a strictly military level, will henceforth include a political dimension, with the democratisation of the Ukrainian government."

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko told AFP Friday in an interview in Kiev that he would call during a visit next week to Brussels for EU accession talks for Ukraine to begin in 2007.

"Deciding on the exact form that membership will take -- full membership or associate status -- or on the year of entry are details that will be dealt with as part of the negotiating process. The most important thing is for the negotiating process to begin," Yushchenko said.

The EU is due to adopt an "action plan" for Ukraine during Yushchenko's visit, laying out a series of benefits the EU intends to offer the country, but stopping short of evoking its hope one day to join the 25-member bloc.

Concerning the possibility of joining NATO, Yushchenko warned that Ukrainian society was not ready to become part of an alliance that was vilified for decades by Ukraine's leaders as an instrument of US imperialism.

"We can fantasise, sat comfortably in an armchair, and say that, yes, our goal is to become part of the Atlantic alliance. Fundamentally, that is true. But if we come out and say so now... it will not make the idea more popular."