Kyiv says U.S. wants its Kolchuha secrets (11/17/02)

Kyiv says U.S. wants its Kolchuha secrets

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Ukraine indicated on November 12 that it believes the United States was attempting to discover the secret locations of exported Ukrainian Kolchuha anti-aircraft radar systems, particularly those sold to China.

A Ukrainian state official said that Washington was claiming in a report recently issued that Kyiv had not been fully cooperative, open and transparent with U.S. and British authorities investigating whether a Kolchuha system was sold to Iraq in order to obtain secret information on the anti-aircraft radar system's location.

"As a lawyer, I must say that this seems to be an effort to force us into espionage," stated Viktor Medvedchuk, President Leonid Kuchma's chief of staff, at an extended briefing during which he attempted to rebuke 18 criticisms made in the joint U.S.-British report the Kuchma administration received on November 5.

On November 14, the U.S. repeated its demand that Ukraine address the issues, which Washington believes has been insufficiently covered.

"We are disappointed that a group of inspectors did not meet with the cooperation and openness promised by the Ukrainian authorities," said State Department Spokesperson Richard Boucher, according to Interfax-Ukraine.

He warned that Kyiv's failure to fully respond with the information and documents requested in the report could damage Ukraine-U.S. relations. He added that Ukraine-NATO relations also were at risk.

The secret report, given to Ukraine on November 5, comes after a team of U.S. and British experts visited Ukraine at the invitation of Kyiv officials to review the country's arms control export regime and inspect its Kolchuha manufacturing and export operations.

The U.S. suspects Ukraine's state leadership of transferring at least one of the anti-aircraft radar systems to Iraq. While Washington has acknowledged that it has no concrete evidence that such a system exists in Iraq, it has made its allegation based on digital recordings from 2000, allegedly between Ukraine's President Kuchma and his top arms export official. Washington has said that it has determined that the tapes are authentic and stands by its assertion, even as several experts have said that it is difficult to prove the authenticity of digital recordings.

Mr. Medvedchuk's statement came as he was commenting on one of the seven questions that the U.S.-British report says Ukrainian authorities have unsatisfactorily answered specifically, the location of four Kolchuhas sold to China.

President Kuchma's chief of staff said Ukraine had no legal right to hand over to investigators the contract signed between China and Ukraine on the sale of Kolchuhas in 2001 because that would reveal information considered top secret by its customer.

Mr. Medvedchuk also emphasized that Ukraine had been open and transparent in providing all the material that it could on the Kolchuha affair. He said U.S. and British experts were allowed access to many classified documents, even though Kyiv has agreements with neither the United States nor Great Britain on sharing confidential materials.

"We have shown unprecedented openness in providing information that could hinder Ukraine's economic and national security," said Mr. Medvedchuk.

He added that the U.S.-British delegation, consisting of experts from the political, military and technical spheres, had been given access to all relevant government officials - more than a dozen in all - who were involved in military arms manufacture, sale and export. In addition, the foreign experts were twice allowed to travel to the Topaz Plant near Donetsk, where the Kolchuha is manufactured.

Mr. Medvedchuk explained that the experts were given all needed manufacturing, maintenance and operation manuals, as well as the serial numbers of all Kolchuha systems and the locations of the 19 that exist in Ukraine. He did admit, however, that information on how the Kolchuha system was developed had been denied the investigators because that remained proprietary information.

"This is Ukraine's unique design, a complement to our engineers and their knowledge," said Mr. Medvedchuk.

President Kuchma's chief of staff also maintained that Ukraine had convincingly shown that the country's arms control regime had sufficient checks and balances so that no individual, not even the head of state, could secretly move military technology out of the country.

Mr. Medvedchuk made the first public acknowledgment that a meeting did indeed take place between President Kuchma and his arms export control chief, Valerii Malev, on July 10, 2000. According to the digital recordings made by a former member of the presidential security staff, Mr. Kuchma is alleged to have given his approval for the sale of a Kolchuha to Iraq via a Jordanian intermediary during that particular meeting.

Mr. Medvedchuk also made the first public statement on how many Kolchuhas Ukraine has manufactured to date and where they are today. He confirmed that Ukraine has produced 76 Kolchuhas since 1987, exclusively at the Topaz Plant, 46 at the time of the Ukrainian SSR and an additional 30 since Ukrainian independence.

Since 1992 Russia has purchased 18 of the 30 newer models, while China has taken four. Ukraine manufactured an additional eight of the new models for itself, three of which were sold to Ethiopia in 2000. Kyiv claims it has end-user documents showing where all the exported early-warning systems eventually went, along with their respective serial numbers.

The president's chief of staff said Ukraine had turned to the United Nations Security Council with a request that its 661 Committee (a reference to Un.H. Resolution 6615 regarding sanctions against Iraq), independently investigate the U.S.-British charges. He said that both China and Russia had supported Ukraine's request, which would be taken up officially at the next scheduled meeting of the Irag sanctions committee.

U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Stephen Pifer underscored at the end of a three-day visit to Ukraine on November 8, during which he met with several Ukrainian leaders - but not President Leonid Kuchma - that the U.S. had not determined Ukraine to be guilty of any wrongdoing. He insisted that Washington simply wanted more information from Kyiv on the Kolchuhas in order to come to a better understanding of what may have taken place regarding a possible transfer of the radar systems to Iraq.

And while he had much to say about why the U.S. suspected that Ukraine's leadership might have been involved, he refused to comment on any possible involvement by Moscow in such a sale.

For the most part, Mr. Pifer stressed that Ukraine needed to remain close to NATO and that it should present its annual target plan and sign a new action plan. He strongly urged that Ukraine's Foreign Affairs Minister Anatolii Zlenko attend the meeting of foreign ministers during Ukraine-NATO Commission proceedings in Prague scheduled for November 22, the second day of the NATO Summit.

Since NATO downgraded the session of the Ukraine-NATO Commission from a summit to a "foreign ministerial," in essence withdrawing an invitation to President Kuchma to attend, Kyiv has delayed indicating whether Mr. Zlenko would go to Prague. Kyiv has, however, given some sense that Mr. Kuchma may still go to take part in the North Atlantic Partnership Council, the organization that makes up the 46 countries that belong to the NATO Partnership for Peace program. A decision on whether either of the two Ukrainian officials will attend the Prague Summit was due on November 15.

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