NEWSBRIEFS (12/01/02)

NEWSBRIEFS

Kuchma names ministers to new Cabinet

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma has appointed State Tax Administration head Mykola Azarov as first vice prime minister and finance minister in Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych's Cabinet, Reuters reported on November 26, quoting presidential spokeswoman Olena Hromnytska. Ms. Hromnytska also told the agency that Ivan Kyrylenko has been appointed vice prime minister for agriculture, Dmytro Tabachnyk as vice prime minister for humanitarian issues, and Vitalii Haiduk as vice prime minister for fuel and energy. Mr. Yanukovych told journalists on November 25 that Defense Minister Volodymyr Shkidchenko, Internal Affairs Minister Yurii Smyrnov, Justice Minister Oleksander Lavrynovych, and Foreign Affairs Minister Anatolii Zlenko will retain their posts in his Cabinet. President Kuchma also proposed that the Verkhovna Rada approve Serhii Tyhypko, the leader of the Labor Ukraine-Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs parliamentary caucus, as governor of the National Bank of Ukraine. That post is currently held by Volodymyr Stelmakh. (RFE/RL Newsline)

More questions raised about Kolchuhas

WASHINGTON - U.S. and British experts who last month investigated the alleged sale by Ukraine of a Kolchuha radar system to Iraq said in a report released on November 25 that they were unable to prove that Ukraine transferred radar systems to Iraq "under openly declared contracts," but added that "covert or illegal arms transfers, particularly with the complicity of third parties, remain a credible possibility," Reuters and the Associated Press reported. The report says Ukraine provided documentation on 72 Kolchuha systems but that four remain unaccounted for. According to Ukrainian officials, these four systems were sold to China, but Ukraine denied investigators access to the contracts, claiming they were commercial secrets. The investigators say they need missing documentation on the sale of the four systems to China, technical information on the location of the systems in China and access to people who were not available for interviews during their visit to Ukraine in October - especially Leonid Derkach, the former head of the Security Service of Ukraine, and Yurii Orshanskyi, the former honorary consul in Iraq. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kwasniewski: do not isolate Ukraine

PRAGUE - At a news conference following the NATO summit in Prague on November 22, President Aleksander Kwasniewski said the West must not isolate Ukraine, Polish Radio reported. "Much depends upon President [Leonid] Kuchma himself, and on his circle, and whether he has drawn the conclusions from the fact that the world expects a Ukraine that is moving forward and not one that is marking time," Mr. Kwasniewski said. "The world wants a Ukraine that resolves problems and does not seek successive justifications," he added. Commenting on the NATO ploy to arrange countries' representatives at the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council session according to their names in French in order to move Kuchma farther away from Tony Blair and George W. Bush, President Kwasniewski said President Kuchma was treated "like a partner, critically but openly." (RFE/RL Newsline)

NATO-Ukraine Commission adopts plan

PRAGUE - The NATO-Ukraine Commission at the NATO summit in Prague on November 22 endorsed an "action plan" to take the bilateral relationship to a "qualitatively new level," Reuters reported, quoting NATO Deputy Secretary-General Alessandro Minuto Rizzo. Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Anatolii Zlenko, who headed the Ukrainian delegation at the session, said the plan will put Kyiv on the road to membership of the alliance. Mr. Rizzo said allegations that Ukraine sold a Kolchuha radar to Iraq were also discussed at the session. "Ministers concluded that transparency and trust were indispensable features to continue to forge a solid community of values between the alliance and Ukraine," Mr. Rizzo told journalists. ITAR-TASS on November 23 quoted a source from Ukraine's National Defense and Security Council as saying the "action plan" spells out a long-term program of adopting European standards in Ukraine's defense sector, the economy, science, counterterrorism and dealing with emergency situations. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Envoy details obstruction to probe

KYIV - U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Carlos Pascual has sent a letter to the media charging that Ukrainian officials stonewalled U.S. and British arms experts invited in October to verify whether Ukraine sold any Kolchuha radar systems to Iraq, the Associated Press reported on November 22. Mr. Pascual's letter came as Ukrainian officials were denying the Kolchuha charges at the NATO summit. The envoy said inspectors were not allowed to see full reports of investigations by Ukraine's National Defense and Security Council, the Defense Ministry, or the procurator general. "While Ukraine's export system is supposed to have checks and balances, such checks were either not exercised or they were not documented, precluding a reconstruction of the events that surrounded the authorization of the sale of the Kolchuha system in 2000," Ambassador Pascual wrote. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kuchma: Great Famine was genocide

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma on November 23 addressed the nation on television with a speech devoted to the Great Famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933, which, according to various estimates, claimed 7 million to 10 million lives, Ukrainian media reported. Mr. Kuchma said Ukraine should insist that the world recognize the Great Famine as an act of Bolshevik genocide against the Ukrainian people. "The Famine became a national catastrophe. In 1932-1933 alone, one-fifth of Ukraine's rural population was killed," the president said. "This [act of] terror through famine was a cynical response of the Bolshevik authorities to the resistance of the Ukrainian peasantry to total collectivization and to the policy of transforming free farmers into silent slaves." President Kuchma said a "grand memorial to the victims of famine" should be built in Kyiv and smaller monuments in other parts of Ukraine. (RFE/RL Newsline)

PM reveals his imprisonment as youth

KYIV - Newly approved Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych on November 20 disseminated a short autobiography among Ukrainian media in which he confesses that in 1968 he was convicted and sent to a penal colony for juveniles. Mr. Yanukovych specified neither the nature of his conviction nor how long he was incarcerated. He also said that in 1970 he was convicted for "causing bodily injuries of a medium level [of harm]" but did not say whether he was imprisoned for the deed. Mr. Yanukovych also made public his income declaration, saying he earned about 17,500 hrv ($3,300) in 2001 in his post as Donetsk Oblast chairman. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Baltic leaders rejoice at NATO invitations

PRAGUE - Leaders of all three Baltic states expressed satisfaction at moving closer to their major foreign-policy goal of NATO membership when an official invitation was extended at the alliance's Prague summit on November 21, BNS reported. Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga said in a Latvian television interview from Prague that she had tears of joy in her eyes when Latvia was named among the seven candidates invited to join. "This is a great day for Latvia," Ms. Vike-Freiberga was quoted by the Associated Press as saying. "For us, it means the righting of the injustices of history ... [and] rejoining the family of free, democratic and independent nations." Estonian Ambassador to NATO Sulev Kannike declared that "Estonia's security has never been more protected than after receiving the invitation." Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus said he is happy his campaign pledge to gain NATO membership is already partially fulfilled before the end of his current term. U.S. President Bush flew to Vilnius on November 22 to meet with the Baltic presidents the next day. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Belarus lashes out against travel ban

MIENSK - Belarusian Foreign Ministry spokesman Pavel Latushka said on November 20 that the decision of 14 EU states to impose a travel ban on President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and seven other Belarusian officials is "an act of undisguised pressure on a sovereign state aimed at resurrecting the dangerous practice of solving political problems with force," Belarusian Television reported. According to Miensk, the travel ban contradicts a recommendation by a group of observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe of the 2001 presidential elections in Belarus asserting that isolating Belarus in the international arena is counterproductive. Meanwhile, the opposition United Civic Party said in a statement the same day that the EU travel ban and the Czech visa denial to President Lukashenka were "well-grounded and justified" decisions, Belapan reported. The party added that the travel ban applies "to [a] few people who have de facto usurped the right to represent Belarus and its citizens." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Polish president urges open-door policy

PRAGUE - President Aleksander Kwasniewski called on NATO leaders at the session of the North Atlantic Council in Prague on November 21 to continue their "open-door policy" with regard to all countries wanting to join the alliance. "I repeat the proposal I presented in Riga to cooperate with all the countries that wish to join NATO in the future, including the countries that defined clearly their intentions a long time ago," Mr. Kwasniewski said minutes after the alliance approved a motion to invite seven new post-Communist members into NATO. (RFE/RL Newsline)

New Polish-Ukrainian border crossing

WARSAW - Poland and Ukraine on November 20 opened a new border crossing in Kroscienko-Smolnica in the Bieszczady Mountains, the PAP news agency reported, quoting a spokesman for the regional governor, Jan Koryl. "The crossing is international in character and is intended for cars and freight vehicles up to 3.5 tons in weight," Mr. Koryl said. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Belarusian president rebukes Russia

MIENSK - Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka met with Russian Duma Chairman Gennadii Seleznev in Miensk on November 18 and assured him that Belarus will not change its course toward rapprochement with Russia, Belarusian Television reported. "No matter how some, particularly in Russia, are trying to drive a wedge in our relations, they will achieve nothing," Mr. Lukashenka said. However, he expressed bitterness over what he sees as Russia's lack of support for him in his stand vis-à-vis the West. "Russia does not have the right to make compromises on Belarus. Belarus is a frontier where the Russian people should stand today to the death, despite any pressure from the West," President Lukashenka said. He also referred to a recent Russian-Belarusian gas row in which Gazprom reduced gas supplies to Belarus over payment for previous deliveries. "There are states that owe Russia billions of dollars, not $165 million, but for some reasons no sanctions against them are taken," the Belarusian leader noted. (RFE/RL Newsline)

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