OTTAWA, May 27 - President Viktor Yushchenko, in Ottawa on Monday, urged Canada's continued support for Ukraine's admission to NATO, ahead of a year-end vote by the transatlantic defense alliance, AFP reported.

In December, NATO's 26 member countries are expected to decide whether to allow Ukraine's application to its Membership Action Plan framework for aspiring members.

"We hope that already in December of this year we will join the Membership Action Plan for NATO," Yushchenko told Canada's parliament on the first day of his three-day visit to Canada.

At a summit in Bucharest in April, NATO promised to eventually consider Ukraine's bid, but failed to reach consensus on starting the process immediately for both Ukraine and Georgia.

Although only one third of Ukrainians support their nation's bid to join NATO, Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper said among NATO countries there is now "overwhelming support for Ukraine to eventually become a member."

"Canada's position is clear," Harper added. "If a country wants to join NATO, the decision is between that country and NATO. It isn't a decision to be made by outsiders," he said, referring to objections by Russia, which strongly opposes NATO membership by Ukraine.

In private talks with Harper, Yushchenko said the two leaders discussed free trade, increasing air travel between Toronto and Kiev, easing visa requirements, and tapping Canadian know-how to generate nuclear power in Ukraine.

Yushchenko also said he offered Ukraine's air transport capacity for the NATO-led military mission in Afghanistan.

Earlier, in his address to parliament, Yushchenko linked Ukraine's continued independence, after five false starts, to joining NATO's "collective security."

He also spoke of the need to improve Ukraine's public administration, and to combat corruption in order to ensure long-lasting political stability -- goals of Ukraine's latest constitutional reforms, and demanded by NATO.

Canada is home to 1.2 million Ukrainian-Canadians -- the second largest Ukrainian diaspora after Russia, according to the latest census -- and was the first Western nation to recognize Ukraine's independence in 1991.

On Tuesday, Canada's parliament is expected to unanimously pass a resolution marking the 1932-1933 famine in Ukraine, known as the Holomodor, as an act of genocide.

Said to have been sparked by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's policy of collectivization, the Holodomor claimed millions of lives. (afp/ez)