NATO is expected to encourage Georgia and Ukraine to pursue reforms needed to eventually join the alliance but stop short of offering formal roadmaps at a meeting of the bloc's foreign ministers on Tuesday.

At an April NATO summit held in Bucharest, France and Germany, worried about the reaction of key energy supplier Russia, blocked Membership Action Plans (MAP) - also called roadmaps - for the former soviet states, Reuters reports.

However, under U.S. pressure, NATO leaders promised them eventual NATO membership and to review their cases in December, though Germany's Foreign Minister said his position had not changed since Bucharest.

Mr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier told business daily Handelsblatt that Georgia and Ukraine and not ready to join the Alliance.

"We gave Georgia and Ukraine a NATO prospect, but also stressed both don't yet satisfy conditions for joining. We will help, but I see no reason just now to go beyond what was agreed then," he said in an interview in the paper's Monday edition.

"Internal political problems in Ukraine have increased if anything, and the attitude toward NATO certainly hasn't become more positive," Steinmeier added.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is also a strong opponent to accession of the two former soviet states to NATO.