EDITORIAL: Security and nukes (01/10/93)

EDITORIAL

Security and nukes

After more than two weeks of headlines, editorials and op-ed commentaries portraying Ukraine as the nuclear bogeyman of the new world order and a nationalistic (in the pejorative sense) state engaging in nuclear blackmail, some American opinion leaders are finally getting it.

Ukraine, which did not desire to become a nuclear state, has become, by virtue of its inheritance from the former USSR, the world's third largest nuclear power. This nuclear power voluntarily opted for a non-nuclear status, declaring its intention not to accept, not to produce and not to procure nuclear weapons.

However, this soon-to-be nuclear-free state is legitimately concerned about its security, existing in the shadow of a nuclear superpower, its larger, more powerful neighbor, Russia, which has subjugated Ukraine in the past.

The Wall Street Journal editorialized on January 6: "Closed out of significant negotiations, Ukraine has been treated in the START talks as a satellite of Russia. U.S. policymakers - uncomfortable with the notion of many countries where once there was one - are insisting that Ukraine return its nuclear weapons to Russian soil."

"... U.S. diplomats would do well to take a look at a modern map. In that vast area that was once called the Soviet Union, they will see 15 new nations. Notably any meaningful strategic arms agreement will require the assent of a nation as large as France and calling itself Ukraine. If its assent is to be won, its own security interests will have to be treated as legitimate."

Ukraine first declared its intention to become a nuclear-free state in July 1990, in its Declaration of State Sovereignty. That position has been reiterated on countless occasions, most notably in May 1992, when Ukraine, along with Kazakhstan and Belarus, signed the so-called Lisbon Protocol. The three states pledged to implement START I (which had been signed by the U.S. and USSR before the latter's demise) and to accede to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968.

President Leonid Kravchuk and the Ukrainian government continue to uphold the Lisbon Protocol, though they have repeatedly stated that in order for Ukraine's Parliament to ratify START I, Ukraine must be given firm security guarantees.

"Why is it that so many people think the Ukrainians should ratify this treaty right away, not thinking about their own people?" asked Volodymyr Kryzhanivsky, Ukraine's ambassador to Russia, during a press conference in Moscow. "Ukraine is moving toward a nuclear-free status and will by no means abandon this goal, which has been repeatedly proclaimed by its president and prime minister," he added.

Writing in the Christian Science Monitor a little more than a week before Presidents George Bush and Boris Yeltsin signed the START II agreement, Ukraine's ambassador to the U.S., Dr. Oleh Bilorus, explained why "some members of the Parliament have balked" at ratifying START until Ukraine receives guarantees of its national security from the U.S. and other nuclear powers. "In the spring of last year we shipped nearly 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons to Russia with the stipulation that they be destroyed, but this condition has not been met. The weapons have merely taken on new ownership. Yet few observers press Russia for an explanation. Instead, they wonder publicly why Ukraine does not hand over more of its weapons. ...We want to rid Ukrainian soil of nuclear weapons. But we must remain alert to the intentions and capabilities of other nations in our region."

On the eve of his departure for the United States, where he was to discuss Ukraine's position on START I, Deputy Foreign Minister Borys Tarasiuk focused on the key to Ukraine's ratification of that treaty: "nuclear powers should accept political responsibility in the form of an appropriate document that would state they will consider unacceptable any use or threat of force against Ukraine on the part of any nuclear state. To be sure, assumption of this responsibility does not, in and of itself, guarantee Ukraine's security, but it does have an important political-legal significance."

But, just as Ukraine seemed to be making its case for security guarantees in the news media, the Bush administration proved, once again, that it just doesn't get it.

The Washington Post reported on January 7 - even before Minister Tarasiuk and his delegation had concluded their meetings with top administration officials - that the State Department had told the delegation Washington would not engage in a bargaining process to persuade Ukraine's Parliament to ratify START, thus rebuffing Ukraine's appeals. The Post wrote: "U.S. sources were emphatic in saying these assurances would be provided after, not before, Ukraine ratifies START I as well as the Non-Proliferation Treaty, effectively renouncing any nuclear ambitions."

Once again the Bush administration is dead wrong in not recognizing the new realities in the new world order. Once again Ukraine must ask: Is anybody out there listening?

And we must ask: Why are the realistic security concerns of a nation of 52 million unimportant?

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