Kuchma taps NATO envoy Tarasiuk as Ukraine's foreign affairs minister (04/26/98)

Kuchma taps NATO envoy Tarasiuk as Ukraine's foreign affairs minister

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Borys Tarasiuk became Ukraine's third foreign minister on April 17 with his appointment by President Leonid Kuchma at a special session of the Collegium of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He replaces Hennadii Udovenko who resigned on April 9 to take a seat in Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada.

President Kuchma and the new minister underscored that the Foreign Affairs Ministry would continue to pursue the same foreign policy objectives that had been established during Mr. Udovenko's tenure.

"Ukrainian foreign policy will not change," said Mr. Tarasiuk. "We will continue to do everything possible to help integrate Ukraine into European and European-Atlantic structures and to strengthen the country's independence by means of foreign policy."

Speaking about the diplomatic corps, Mr. Tarasiuk said "We will make a serious effort to enhance the professional level in the performance of the whole system."

In a special presentation, President Kuchma outlined to the collegium his ideas on the form Ukraine's foreign policy should take. "Our foreign policy should be neither pro-West, nor pro-East, it must be pro-Ukraine," said President Kuchma.

Chief among the responsibilities that the ministry should assume, according to President Kuchma, is to develop economic policies in the international field, including the development of large-scale international economic projects. He also called for "new impulses" in the development of relations with the European Union.

The president told Ukraine's foreign service to "fill with content" the strategic relations between Ukraine and the United States. He also underscored the priority of relations with Russia

Most of Ukraine's government leaders attended the special session, including Prime Minister Valerii Pustovoitenko, Cabinet members and National Security and Defense Council Secretary Volodymyr Horbulin.

Mr. Horbulin, who is President Kuchma's most trusted advisor, told jouralists after the session of the Foreign Affairs Ministry Collegium that the appointment of Mr. Tarasiuk should be seen as another point on a stable continuum of Ukrainian foreign policy. "We don't need to change the direction of foreign policy so much as to change the tempo," said Mr. Horbulin. "We need a more rigid defense of the interests of Ukraine."

Mr. Tarasiuk, 49, most recently was Ukraine's ambassador to the Benelux and its envoy to NATO. As such he played a key role in the preparation of Ukraine's special charter with NATO that was signed last summer.

From 1992 to 1994 Mr. Tarasiuk was vice minister under independent Ukraine's first foreign affairs minister, Anatolii Zlenko, and headed the Ukrainian delegation in talks with the U.S. and Russia over Ukraine's nuclear disarmament.

The new foreign affairs minister was born in Dzerzhynsk, Zhytomyr Oblast, in 1949 and attended Kyiv State University, where he earned a degree in international relations in 1975. He began working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR in 1971. By 1994 he had assumed the post of first vice minister for foreign affairs. He spent five years (1981-1986) at the United Nations, initially as second secretary and then first secretary of the Ukrainian SSR Mission.

President Kuchma accepted the resignation of two more Cabinet ministers on April 21. Gone are Minister of the Economy Viktor Suslov and Minister of Science and Technolgy Volodymyr Semynozhenko. Both ministers were elected to Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada in the March 29 elections. Mr. Semynozhenko won as an independent and Mr. Suslov as a member of the Socialist Party slate.

The president's press secretary, Oleksander Maidannyk, called he resignations "inevitable." He also confirmed that the acting procurator general, Oleh Lytvak, and the head of the state tax control board, Viktor Korol, had also decided to leave government for legislative work.

The two Cabinet resignations bring the number of Cabinet members who have decided to resign after winning a seat in the Verkhovna Rada to four. Seven Cabinet members won legislative seats in those elections. Only Prime Minister Pustovoitenko and Minister of Cabinet Affairs Anatolii Tolstoukhov have decided to stay. Minister of Environmental Affairs Yurii Kostenko still has not declared his decision.