Ukraine denies reports of role in turbine sales deal with Iran (04/20/97)

Ukraine denies reports of role in turbine sales deal with Iran

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - A Ukrainian government official said on April 16 that Ukraine simply has never had any part in a deal to sell turbines to Russia for an Iranian nuclear reactor, notwithstanding a comment made by Israel's minister of trade and industry a day earlier that he had received assurances that Ukraine had decided against the deal.

President Leonid Kuchma's foreign affairs advisor, Volodymyr Ohrysko, said, "Ukraine does not have any involvement in the Iran reactor project." He diplomatically added, "Mr. Sharansky said what he said."

The president's spokesman, Dmytro Markov, verified that President Kuchma had met with Natan Sharansky, Israel's minister of trade and industry, for "about six to eight minutes on April 14." He would not comment on the substance of the discussions.

Mr. Sharansky, in Kyiv for talks on trade expansion between Israel and Ukraine, said after the meeting that he had reached agreement with President Kuchma that Ukraine would halt the sale of turbines for the nuclear reactor that Russia has agreed to sell Iran. The United States and Israel have been applying steady pressure on Russia to cancel the sale. Mr. Sharansky explained that President Kuchma had assured him that specific items for nuclear reactors would not be sold.

"We are very satisfied because this was an important issue for us," said Mr. Sharansky at a press conference in Kyiv, where he had signed four agreements on trade expansion with Ukraine's Minister of Foreign Economic Relations Serhii Osyka.

A New York Times story on April 14 alleged that Ukraine had committed to supplying the turbines, which are built at the Turboatom factory in the city of Kharkiv. But the chief engineer of the plant, Mykhailo Verchenko, told the Associated Press that he knew of no such contract and that, in any case, there is a factory in Russia that could build the turbines.

Mr. Ohrysko said that, as in the past, more hyperbole than substance exists in the allegations. "There is more rhetoric than anything here. This is not the issue it is being made out to be."

He said the latest story was another one in a pattern of misleading and destructive information that is released to the press at crucial periods for the country's foreign affairs.

On the eve of President Kuchma's last trip to the United States a story appeared in the U.S. that Ukraine had sold planes to Columbia that were subsequently used for the smuggling of drugs. Last year a Russian news story stated that high government officials in Russia had plotted to spread information in Ukraine to make the president out to be an agent of Russia, which occurred at a time of an intense diplomatic dialogue on a treaty of friendship and cooperation.

The New York Times story on the sale of the turbines appeared as the United States Senate holds hearings on the foreign aid budget, which last year included a $225 million earmark for Ukraine that is being reviewed this year. And the same time, Russia and Ukraine again seem to be on the verge of a comprehensive treaty on friendship and cooperation.

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