Ukraine to allow U.S. experts to inspect Kolchuha facilities (10/06/02)

Ukraine to allow U.S. experts to inspect Kolchuha facilities

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Ukrainian authorities will allow technical experts from the United States and Great Britain to inspect several sites in Ukraine connected to the development and production of the Kolchuha air defense system.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Elizabeth Jones and Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma agreed on such a course of action while Ms. Jones was in Kyiv October 1-2, during which the focus of discussions was the Kolchuha that Washington has alleged Ukraine might have sold to Iraq.

The U.S. is concerned that such a system, whose sale is banned by United Nations sanctions against Baghdad, could be used to shoot down British and U.S. military aircraft, which patrol a no fly zone over Iraq.

The team of experts should arrive on October 13 and will have access to all relevant documents. They will see operating Kolchuha air defense installations stationed in Ukraine and will visit the Topaz Plant where the military hardware is produced.

The latest Ukrainian controversy erupted on September 25 when the U.S. State Department said it had suspended aid to the Ukrainian central government after verifying that a portion of the recordings made by former Ukrainian presidential security officer Mykola Melnychenko in the office of President Kuchma is authentic. U.S. State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher said at the time that the U.S. also had "some indications" that the system was already in Iraq.

In the Melnychenko recordings Mr. Kuchma is said to give the go-ahead for the sale of a Kolchuha system for Iraq to the head of his military export committee, Valerii Malev. The sale was to take place through a Jordanian intermediary.

Maj. Melnychenko has been at the heart of allegations of presidential improprieties and criminal behavior ever since he went public with recordings he says he made in the inner chamber of the presidential offices.

President Kuchma has categorically stated from the outset that Ukraine did not sell a Kolchuha system to Iraq, and he has pledged to cooperate with U.S. officials to prove that is the case.

While more Ukrainian government officials have accepted that the voices on the recordings, which were authenticated by U.S. experts, are really those of President Kuchma and his state export control official, the official Ukrainian government line remains that no such air defense systems were ever sold to Iraq.

Procurator General Sviatoslav Piskun told reporters on October 2 that he has no basis upon which to begin an investigation of possible criminal complicity by anybody.

"The only thing that concerns me is that the sale of Kolchuhas to Iraq did not occur," explained Mr. Piskun. "Maybe there are moments of ethical impropriety, but I am only concerned with the legal moments."

However, National Deputy Viktor Yushchenko, head of the Our Ukraine political bloc and a central player in the growing opposition movement trying to oust President Kuchma, told The Weekly on October 2 that the moral and ethical aspects of a conversation to allow the sale of a system that could lead to the deaths of U.S. pilots had to be considered.

"Simply the fact that this was even considered carries much responsibility. This, after all, could have affected relations between partners. There was a strategic relationship," said Mr. Yushchenko.

The United States has been vague about what specific "indications" it has received that a Ukrainian Kolchuha may be in Iraq and has been unwilling to provide more information. During a press conference on September 29 U.S. Ambassador Carlos Pascual said he could not elaborate on what indications exist that the Kolchuha is on the ground in Iraq.

However, Mr. Pascual provided hope that the financial squeeze that Kyiv might now feel should not last long. The U.S. envoy emphasized that the suspension of aid to the central government of Ukraine was a "pause," and not a sanction as such, and that it would remain only until a policy review that Washington had launched regarding its relationship with Ukraine was completed - unless, of course, more evidence of illegal weapons sales is found. He explained that all kinds of other assistance programs for Ukraine, including promotion of a free press, student exchanges, rule of law development, remain funded.

Ambassador Pascual also indicated that there is concern on the part of Washington that if any documentation had existed in Ukraine on the production and sale of the air defense system to Iraq, it may already have been destroyed.

"This issue, appropriately, has received a great deal of attention, but this creates an environment in which individuals could have been manipulated and information destroyed," explained Mr. Pascual.

The Kolchuha controversy has caused reverberations also in the capital of Ukraine's closest Central European ally. While European Union officials said that at present they will not change their policy toward Ukraine, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski told a meeting of NATO defense ministers being held in Warsaw at the time the announcement came from Washington, that he was "deeply concerned" about the allegations and might have to review his relations with Kyiv.

Poland's Prime Minister Leszek Miller announced several days later that he was considering not attending a Polish-Ukrainian economic forum scheduled for October 3 in Lviv. However, after conferring with President Kwasniewski, he arrived in Lviv for the opening session.

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