US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday indicated that Ukraine was “irreversibly” on the path to joining NATO as long as it continues reforms and suggested that it had only a short route to join the defensive alliance.

“In my estimation at least, success is a strong, independent Ukraine, increasingly integrated with your Atlantic institutions like the European Union, like NATO, and that is able to stand on its own feet, militarily, economically, democratically,” he said in a moderated conversation at the NATO Public Forum in Washington, DC.

On the democratic front, Blinken said “the fact that NATO also requires as Ukraine moves irreversibly along the path to membership, that it continue reforms – that’s the strongest guarantee that the reforms that the Ukrainian people so strongly support will continue and will deepen.”

The top US diplomat acknowledged differences between the 32 NATO allies about the language of the joint communique but suggested that was to be expected.

“This is a democratic alliance and (an) alliance of democratic countries. Different countries have slightly different views on some of these issues. And part of our responsibility is to proceed with consensus,” he said. “The greatest strength that we have, the most valuable currency we have as an alliance is our unity. But that unity doesn’t just happen. It’s the product of conversation. It’s the product of listening. It’s the product is talking. It’s the product of building that consensus. And it gets reflected in these documents.”

Moreover, Blinken said that while “it’s important to look at the words…it’s even more important to look at the action.”

As CNN reported Monday, Ukraine’s path to NATO was described as “irreversible” in a draft of the NATO leaders joint communique. However, a senior European diplomat argued on Tuesday that “this irreversibility is very much reversible.”