Ukraine set to withdraw troops from Iraq (01/16/05)

Ukraine set to withdraw troops from Iraq

by Andrew Nynka
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada passed a non-binding resolution on January 11 recommending that outgoing President Leonid Kuchma immediately withdraw Ukraine's troops from Iraq. The move came a day after Mr. Kuchma called on two of his ministers to draw up a plan that would remove Ukrainian troops from the country by the end of June.

Mr. Kuchma's announcement came a day after an explosion killed eight Ukrainian soldiers at an ammunition dump in Iraq and wounded six others. The explosion has been called an accident, but a Ukrainian military commander later suggested it could have been a terrorist act.

Following Parliament's call to remove Ukraine's troops - which passed by a vote of 308-0 out of a registered 416 deputies - a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that preparations to withdraw Ukrainian troops from Iraq in the first half of 2005 had begun.

Markian Lubkivskyi, the ministry spokesman, said during a press conference on January 11 that both the Defense and Foreign Affairs ministries have begun joint consultations to carry out Mr. Kuchma's order and that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also started talks with foreign diplomats on the issue.

"There are no particular time limits for withdrawal of our contingent from Iraq," Mr. Lubkivskyi said. "However, the preparation period has begun." He said that removing Ukrainian troops from Iraq would be a difficult and multi-stage process.

Ukraine's Minister of Foreign Affairs Kostyantyn Gryshchenko met with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst on January 11 and with British Ambassador to Ukraine Robert Brinkley the following day to discuss the situation, Mr. Lubkivskyi said.

Ukraine currently has the fourth largest contingent in Iraq, with 1,589 soldiers who serve under a Polish-led unit in the south-central portion of the country. Sixteen Ukrainian soldiers have died in Iraq and more than 20 have been wounded since Ukrainian peacekeepers first began operations there in August 2003.

In the most recent incident, eight Ukrainians died at 12:05 p.m. on January 9 when a bomb they were extracting and moving from an ammunition deposit near the town of As Suwayrah exploded, injuring six other Ukrainian soldiers, according to the Defense Ministry's press service.

Cause of explosion not known

The cause of the explosion has not been identified, and Ukrainian commanders in Iraq have opened a criminal case in the matter and have begun an investigation. Ukrainian Maj. Gen. Serhiy Savchenko, deputy chief of the Multinational Division arrived at the scene of the explosion and has been overseeing the assessment, the Defense Ministry said.

Though the explosion has been called an accident, Lt. Gen. Volodymyr Mozharovsky, acting commander of land forces, said on January 10 during a press conference in Kyiv that investigators were looking into the possibility that it was an attack.

Lt. Gen. Mozharovsky said there were reports that people sitting in a car had been watching the Ukrainian soldiers before the blast and quickly sped away in their car moments before the explosion, leaving some military commanders to speculate that a bomb might have been set off remotely. "There is a possibility that the explosion was an act planned in advance," he said.

Meanwhile, top military officials in Ukraine echoed calls to remove Ukrainian troops from Iraq.

"The situation in Iraq has deteriorated, and as a consequence we lost our men," Defense Minister Oleksander Kuzmuk told the Interfax news agency after meeting with President Kuchma on January 10. Secretary of the National Defense Council Volodymyr Radchenko, Vice-Prime Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk and Foreign Affairs Minister Gryshchenko also took part in that meeting.

"Today the president has set a task for the defense minister and foreign minister to immediately start planning the withdrawal of the Ukrainian contingent from the Republic of Iraq in the first half of the current year," Mr. Kuzmuk said, adding that the withdrawal could begin as early as March.

News of Ukraine's eventual pullout from Iraq also drew the attention of officials in Washington, where State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher touched on the topic during a briefing with the press on January 11.

"The Ukrainians have said the changes in Ukraine's contingent would be made in full consultation with the multinational forces and with the Iraqi government, and that it would be done in a responsible and measured way. So we trust that Ukraine's new government, when it takes office, will look at this issue carefully and discuss it as appropriate with us and the Iraqis," Mr. Boucher said.

A pledge by Yushchenko

Throughout the presidential election campaign, Viktor Yushchenko repeatedly pledged to remove Ukraine's troops from Iraq.

Oleksander Zinchenko, Mr. Yushchenko's campaign manager, said on January 10 that withdrawal was a difficult procedure, burdened with political, financial, military and diplomatic details, but he stressed that the issue would be one of President-elect Yushchenko's top concerns.

"I can only say that the promise that ... Yushchenko made to the Ukrainian people would be kept," Mr. Zinchenko said.

Presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych also commented on the matter, issuing a press release on January 12. "Today, it is clear to everyone that the war in Iraq is a conflict without an end. We had some hope for stabilization in this war several months ago, whereas today it is clear - the bloody events will go on indefinitely," he said.

"Therefore, expressing a deep and sincere sympathy with the families of the dead today, I call on politicians to rise above their ambitions, above narrow interests to gain power at any price, and think of people, those Ukrainians, to whom such colorful and wordy promises were given on city squares," Mr. Yanukovych said.

Condolences from U.S.

The United States Embassy in Ukraine issued a statement on January 11 expressing "deepest condolences on the death in Iraq of eight Ukrainian peacekeepers, and the wounding of six others, in a munitions explosion on January 9."

"Our sincerest gratitude and deepest sympathy go out to the brave soldiers' families, to the Ukrainian government and to the Ukrainian people in their time of loss. All who cherish freedom can only express our sincerest appreciation for the peacekeepers' efforts in a just and noble cause," the statement said.

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