Shcherbak offers assessment of elections, foreign relations (03/29/98)

Shcherbak offers assessment of elections, foreign relations

by Yaro Bihun
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

WASHINGTON - Ukraine's Ambassador to the United States Yuri Shcherbak says that whatever the outcome of the March 29 elections to the Verkhovna Rada, "Ukraine's leadership will do its utmost to ensure that Ukraine's progress along the road to reform is irreversible."

"In these circumstances, support of the world community, and especially the United States, for these reforms efforts is crucial," he added.

Ambassador Shcherbak spoke on the coming elections as well as on President Leonid Kuchma's recent visit to Moscow and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright's visit to Kyiv during a news conference at the National Press Club here March 12.

He also used the occasion to deny the latest "disinformation," as he termed it, about alleged international misdeeds by Ukraine, which appeared in the Washington Times on March 6, the day Secretary Albright was in Kyiv.

Citing anonymous U.S. intelligence officials, the Washington Times' Bill Gertz reported that Ukraine had been shipping "large quantities of arms" to Afghanistan's radical Islamic Taleban government through Pakistan and that, in response, Russia stepped up its weapons supplies to opposition Afghan rebels.

"Ukraine has never supplied any military equipment to Afghanistan, in contradiction to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1076 of October 22, 1996," Ambassador Shcherbak stressed, adding that Ukraine's stringent export control system would preclude that possibility.

As for arms supplies to Pakistan, he said, Ukraine has a large-scale and well-publicized contract with the Pakistan government. "And we definitely deliver arms shipments - tanks, and new modern Ukrainian tanks - to Pakistan, but they are in no way designed for anyone else except the Pakistan government," he explained.

Discussing the February 26-March 1 Kuchma-Yeltsin summit in Moscow, Mr. Shcherbak pointed out that it concentrated on improving bilateral economic relations, much as President Yeltsin's visit to Kyiv in 1997 focused on the major political issues - the signing of the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership and the agreement resolving the issue of the Black Sea Fleet.

The two sides signed a 10-year treaty on economic cooperation that is expected to increase trade between Ukraine and Russia by a factor of more than 2.5, he said.

Mr. Shcherbak pointed out that annual bilateral trade now stands at an estimated $15 billion, and that there is a high level of interdependence between the two economies: 50 to 80 percent interdependence in the major high-tech sectors; 60 percent of Ukrainian enterprises have cooperative arrangements with Russian enterprises; and 7 million Ukrainian workers produce products for export to Russia.

The two sides expressed their support for free access of their capital to each-other's markets, improving policies on investment, and establishing transnational financial and industrial groups, Mr. Shcherbak said.

In the political area, he said, the Ukrainian and Russian presidents said they would "boost the negotiating process" on the delimitation of their common border, work for the "speedy enactment" of the Treaty on Friendship and of the three agreements on the Black Sea Fleet, and expressed the need "to work out additional Ukrainian-Russian documents concerning the stationing of the Russian Black Sea Fleet on the territory of Ukraine."

Mr. Shcherbak said that President Kuchma sees Ukraine as being part of "Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe." Globally its relationships encompass "Russia-Europe-North America-Black Sea region and CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States)," and, therefore, he added, "Ukraine will deepen its strategic partnership with the U.S. and strengthen its ties with the European Union and NATO, thus continuing the line towards integration with the European Union."

Secretary Albright's talks in Kyiv with President Kuchma and Foreign Minister Hennadii Udovenko covered a wide range of issues, but focused especially on the peaceful use of nuclear energy and space cooperation, he said. In this area, Ukraine agreed not to supply Russia with turbines for the nuclear power station Russia plans to build in Iran. Mr. Shcherbak stressed that this was done for economic reasons.

With the Iranian issue out of the way, the United States and Ukraine signed an agreement on the peaceful use of nuclear energy, which, he explained, opens up a broad range of possibilities for peaceful nuclear cooperation between the two countries, including nuclear fuel production and the supply of U.S. low enriched uranium fuel for Ukrainian power stations.

The United States also expressed its full support for Ukraine's immediate accession to the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), which, Mr. Shcherbak said, should occur during the organization's next plenary meeting this fall. He explained that Ukraine's membership in the MTCR will enable it to cooperate with the United States and other Western countries' space programs, especially in the launching of U.S. satellites using Ukrainian Zenit rockets in the Sea Launch Global Star projects and in the international space station project. As a member of the MTCR, Ukraine will not be subject to limits on the number of U.S. commercial satellites it will be allowed to launch.

Ambassador Shcherbak discounted suggestions in the Ukrainian press about a possible rift in President Kuchma's foreign policy team in light of the absence of his chief foreign policy advisor Volodymyr Horbulin at the Moscow summit and the president's reported slight of Foreign Minister Udovenko at a news conference during the Albright visit.

He pointed out that during the Moscow summit, Mr. Horbulin was taking part in very important talks in London and that, later, he did play a "crucial role" in the preparation and conduct of the Albright visit.

The president's correction of Mr. Udovenko's estimate of losses incurred by Turbatom by not producing the turbines for the Russian power plant in Iran was correct, said Ambassador Shcherbak. While Turbatom's participation in the deal would have amounted to $45 million, he explained, because of Iran's foot-dragging on the project, the Ukrainian firm's input so far was the preparation of some blueprints at an estimated cost of $500,000.

Ambassador Shcherbak welcomed President Bill Clinton's announcement on the previous day that his administration would initiate a series of measures - including an international conference - against the international trafficking of women, a problem being experienced by Ukraine and some of its Eastern European neighbors.

The holding of an international conference was a Ukrainian initiative, he said, recalling that he and the Embassy's press counselor, Natalia Zarudna, presented this proposal during a meeting with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in January. "Our proposal got a very positive answer from the American side," he added.

He was among three foreign ambassador's present at the White House ceremony marking International Women's Day at which the president announced his initiatives. Also present were the ambassadors of the European Union and Israel.

Commenting on negative reporting on Ukraine, Mr. Shcherbak said he was sorry that American media ignores positive changes in Ukraine, but added that more positive coverage will follow as Ukraine's economy improves.

The Ukrainian government is addressing one of its most obvious economic shortcomings - the non-payment of some $2 billion in workers' salaries - he said by, first of all, going after the many private and government enterprises that in the past have not paid any taxes. During the first two months of 1998, tax revenues increased by 30 percent over the previous year, he said.