NEWSBRIEFS (11/17/02)

NEWSBRIEFS

NATO sends a blunt message

BRUSSELS - Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma have been sent messages stressing that "their presence at the NATO summit in Prague is undesirable," RFE/RL's Belarusian Service reported on November 12, citing an unnamed source at NATO headquarters. The source added that if those two leaders make an appearance at the November 21-22 summit, they "will see a lot of empty chairs around them." Miensk maintains that, as a full-fledged member of NATO's Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, Belarus needs no special invitation to attend the summit. Belarusian Foreign Ministry spokesman Paval Latushka told RFE/RL that NATO's approach to the Prague summit betrays NATO's "selective attitude" toward Partnership Council members and "a practice of double standards" in relation to Belarus. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Ukraine reveals Kolchuha info

KYIV - Ukraine's Topaz factory in Donetsk has manufactured 76 Kolchuha radar stations since 1987, when the first was produced, Viktor Medvedchuk, head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, said at a briefing on November 12, according to RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service. The factory had manufactured 46 Kolchuha stations for the Soviet Defense Ministry by January 1992, and 14 of those units have been located among Ukrainian military units, he said. After January 1992 another 30 stations were produced: 18 for Russia, eight for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry and four for China. In or after 1991, three stations were sold to Ethiopia following modifications. Mr. Medvedchuk said the serial numbers of all the radar stations - aside from the first unit in 1987, which had no serial number - have been provided to U.S. and British experts. There are 19 Kolchuha stations in Ukraine, he said, and the visiting experts were shown all their locations. "We are talking about top-secret information, but we provided it to [the U.S. and British] experts," Mr. Medvedchuk added. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Ukraine says it halted talks on Kolchuha

KYIV - Ukrainian presidential administration head Viktor Medvedchuk said the Security Service of Ukraine and the Defense Ministry halted talks between state arms exporter Ukrspetseksport and a Jordanian middleman attempting to buy Kolchuha radar systems for Iraq, the Interfax news agency reported on November 12. According to the report, Mr. Medvedchuk recalled that former Ukrspetseksport head Valerii Malev "really held such unofficial talks, but they were not held at the level of signing protocols, making offers, or concluding deals. The talks concerned a request on the possibility of a sale." As a result, he contended, Ukrainian security services, along with the intelligence directorate of the Defense Ministry, intervened and advised Mr. Malev to terminate talks with the Jordanian. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Supreme Court elects chairman

KYIV - Vasyl Maliarenko was elected by secret ballot on November 11 to chair the Supreme Court of Ukraine, reported the UNIAN news service. Judge Maliarenko on October 28 requested that his name not be put forward as a candidate to the post, saying that "some groups intend to hinder, slander and blackmail me, including a threat to kill," according to UNIAN. However, President Leonid Kuchma on November 1 supported his candidacy and qualified Judge Maliarenko's statement as a "moment of weakness." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Tax collection in Ukraine falls short

KYIV - According to the Finance Ministry and the State Tax Administration, the Ukrainian government may fail to collect as much as 16 billion hrv ($3 billion U.S.) in taxes this year, UNIAN reported on November 11. Volodymyr Parniuk of the Finance Ministry told the agency that uncollected taxes currently comprise some 13.2 billion hrv. UNIAN reported that the fuel and energy sector is of particular concern, accounting for nearly 60 percent of tax arrears. In particular, the agency said the state-run Naftohaz Ukrainy and Ukrenerho paid just 5 percent of their value-added and income taxes due in August and September. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kyiv seeks U.N. probe on Kolchuha

KYIV - Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Anatolii Zlenko has asked the United Nations Security Council to look into U.S. allegations that Ukraine might have sold a Kolchuha radar system to Iraq, UNIAN reported on November 11, quoting Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Serhii Borodenkov. Mr. Zlenko said in a letter to the Security Council that Kyiv disagrees with the claim by U.S. and British experts that Ukrainian officials failed to provide them with sufficient information when they investigated the Kolchuha issue in Ukraine last month. "We should not leave this situation in an ambiguous position. We need to appeal to the higher authority also, because Iraqi issues are not only the American security and our bilateral relations, but are issues of world peace and security," Mr. Zlenko said on November 10, in an apparent reference to an earlier statement by U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher that there is no need for a U.N. probe. "If the Ukrainian government had wanted to clarify matters fully, they could have done so with the U.S. and the U.K. team," Mr. Boucher said on November 6 in Washington. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Leftists mark anniversary of revolution

KYIV - Some 6,000 members of the Communist Party and other Ukrainian leftist parties and organizations held a rally on European Square in Kyiv on November 7 to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the October Revolution in Russia, UNIAN reported. "Down with the hated regime and those who betrayed the Ukrainian people," the Associated Press quoted Communist Party Chairman Petro Symonenko as saying to the crowd. Participants in the rally laid flowers at a monument to Lenin and sang a song called "Lenin Lives." Similar, albeit less well-attended leftist rallies, took place in Dnipropetrovsk, Luhansk, Sumy, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi and other cities. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Austria advocates Ukraine's entry to EU

VIENNA - Austrian President Tomas Klestil told Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma in Vienna on November 6 that he is ready to be a "political advocate" of Ukraine on its path toward European Union membership, according to the UNIAN news agency. President Kuchma paid an official visit to Austria on November 6-7. "The future Europe, democratic and independent, cannot exist without Russia and its nearest neighbor, Ukraine," President Klestil reportedly told his Ukrainian counterpart. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Most Ukrainians think censorship exists

KYIV - An opinion poll conduced by the Ukrainian Democratic Circle public organization, led by sociologist Serhii Makeyev, has revealed that 68 percent of Ukrainians believe there is political censorship in Ukraine. In the period from October 4-13, 1,000 respondents were asked whether the press and television come under political censorship and are politically biased. Forty-three percent of those polled answered this question in the affirmative, and another 25 percent said they believed this probably is the case. Eleven percent of respondents said there is no political censorship, and another 7 percent said they couldn't say either way. Asked who engaged in political censorship in Ukraine, 55 percent of those polled named the presidential staff, 24 percent the owners of television channels and newspapers, 22 percent the National Council for Television and Radio, and 20 percent the editors of television channels and newspapers. The poll was conducted in all regions of Ukraine. (Interfax-Ukraine)

Jewish groups clash over Kyiv project

KYIV - A U.S.-based organization's plan to construct a multi-million dollar Jewish community center in Kyiv has run into opposition from an unlikely source - the local Jewish community. At issue is the project's location at Babyn Yar, known worldwide as the site where Nazis massacred thousands during World War II. The group backing the plan maintains that the project would provide the capital with the community center it has always lacked. Opponents say that the idea is, at best, inappropriate. The dispute started after the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, a non-government organization that provides assistance to Jews throughout the world, rolled out a plan to build a memorial, research and community center at Babyn Yar. The project, called Heritage, included plans for a museum, research institute and community center with a theater. The Kyiv City Administration donated land for the center and the City Construction Council, which oversees city development, approved the proposed project last spring. That touched off a storm of protests from the Jewish community that the center was supposed to serve. Opponents said it was unethical to build a community center that would include entertainment activities on what essentially is a mass grave and the site of one of the nation's most notorious massacres. "There are many other places in Kyiv where a community center can be built," said Josyf Zissels, chairman of Vaad, a Jewish association. "Why build the center at the place where people died, instead of at a place where they lived?" Sixteen public organizations on October 4 sent an open letter to the president, prime minister and other senior government officials requesting that the project be halted. JDC spokesperson Tatiana Kovtun said that the complaints have led the organization to reconsider parts of the project. Entertainment elements, like the theater, have been scrapped. (Kyiv Post)

U.S. provides equipment to border guards

KYIV - U.S. Ambassador Carlos Pascual handed over $460,000 worth of vehicles and equipment provided by the U.S. government to Ukraine's State Border Guards on October 17. Gen. Col. Mykola Lytvyn, commander of the Border Guards, received the equipment at the ceremony. The equipment, purchased locally, includes 22 GAZ trucks, four GAZ vans, two UAZ four-drive vehicles, 200 hand-held radios, night-vision devices and other items. The equipment represents the first phase of an assistance plan between the United States and the border guards. The technical assistance program uses Freedom Support Act funds to provide equipment and training to combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union. The assistance is part of a broader program to help Ukraine's border security and export control agencies fulfill their international role in counter-proliferation efforts. (U.S. Embassy)

Romania rejects Ukrainian charges

BUCHAREST - In a press release dated November 12, the Romanian Foreign Ministry rejected Ukraine's charges that Bucharest's positions are making it impossible to reach an agreement on the delimitation of the two countries' borders, Mediafax reported. The ministry said Ukraine's allegations that Romania is making territorial demands regarding Serpents Island in the Black Sea are untrue, emphasizing that from the beginning of negotiations in 1997 Romania has accepted Ukraine's full sovereignty over the territory inherited from the former Soviet Union. It said only the delimitation of the continental shelf and "economic zones" are at issue, and that in the last round of negotiations held in Kyiv the Ukrainian side refused to address this issue in any way. (RFE/RL Newsline)

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