NEWSBRIEFS (01/19/03)

NEWSBRIEFS

CIS summit slated for Ukraine

KYIV - Heads of state of the Commonwealth of Independent States will meet at a government residence in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast in western Ukraine on January 28-29, UNIAN reported on January 14, quoting Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Serhii Borodenkov. Mr. Borodenkov said the summit will focus on economic issues. "There will be virtually no politics at this summit - [only] issues of interests for the entire CIS will be considered," he added. Mr. Borodenkov said, in line with a ruling of the CIS Economic Court in 1994, Ukraine is a CIS founder and "participant," but not a member, since Kyiv has neither signed nor ratified the CIS Charter. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Ukraine posts economic growth of 4.1 %

KYIV - Ukraine's gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 4.1 percent in 2002, UNIAN reported on January 15, quoting First Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Mykola Azarov. Mr. Azarov added that industrial production grew by 7 percent last year, while inflation was "virtually nil." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Zlenko and Powell confer via phone

KYIV - Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Anatolii Zlenko and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell have discussed by telephone the prospects for developing bilateral cooperation, the Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Ministry's press service reported. Messrs. Zlenko and Powell discussed proposals which the foreign affairs minister put forward in his latest letter to the secretary of state "relating to some urgent issues of bilateral cooperation," the press service said. "The sides agreed to thoroughly study all approaches to stabilize Ukraine-U.S. relations," according to the press service. The two leaders also discussed the possibility of organizing a meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries. The two also discussed the crisis around Iraq in the context of the expected United Nations Security Council meeting on this issue. (BBC Monitoring Service)

Presidential administration overstaffed?

KYIV - Our Ukraine lawmaker Mykola Tomenko, head of the parliamentary Committee for the Freedom of Expression and Information, told UNIAN on January 13 that staffing of the presidential administration includes 619 salaried posts. Mr. Tomenko stressed that the figure, which was communicated to him officially from the presidential administration, is double the number of positions in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine in the 1980s. This "significant overbalance" of posts in comparison with the number of those in the Communist-era Central Committee "looks unnatural," he added. National Deputy Tomenko said the presidential administration in its current form operates not as a consultative body but as "the supreme organ of the executive power." He charged that such a situation contradicts the Constitution of Ukraine. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Resettled Ukrainians seek justice

KYIV - A nationwide organization called the Congress of Ukrainians of the Kholm and Pidliashia regions, uniting individuals (and their descendants) who were forcibly resettled from eastern and southeastern Poland to the Ukrainian SSR in 1944-1946, has called on the Verkhovna Rada to hold a parliamentary hearing devoted to their plight, UNIAN reported on January 13. The congress is demanding that legislators provide a legal and political assessment of the forcible post-war resettlement of Ukrainians from Poland, give those resettled the status of deported persons, and compensate them for moral and material damages. According to an accord between the governments of Poland and the Ukrainian SSR at the time, some 460,000 Ukrainians were resettled from Polish territory to Ukraine in 1944-1946. Another 140,000 Ukrainians were resettled in 1947 during Akcja Wisla from southeastern Poland to the so-called Recovered Lands, Poland's newly acquired areas in the north and west. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Ukraine faces new U.S. allegations

LONDON - The Times of London on January 10 quoted an unnamed U.S. official saying Ukraine might have transferred a pontoon bridge to Iraq in breach of U.N. sanctions. The official added that other Ukrainian transfers to Iraq are a "continuing problem." U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the same day that he cannot confirm the new allegations but added that Washington will look into them. Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Anatolii Zlenko said on January 10 that Kyiv has exported pontoon bridges, but never to Iraq. "If there are any pontoon bridges in Iraq, our government doesn't have any responsibility for it because Ukraine never sold such bridges directly to Iraq," an RFE/RL correspondent quoted Mr. Zlenko as saying. The U.S. administration reduced its aid and instituted a review of its policy toward Ukraine over allegations that Kyiv sold Kolchuha radar systems to Baghdad in contravention of United Nations sanctions. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Court to reconsider former PM's immunity

KYIV - Ukraine's Supreme Court ordered a lower court to reconsider the lifting of former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko's parliamentary immunity, the Associated Press reported on January 8, quoting Mr. Lazarenko's lawyer. Mr. Lazarenko has unsuccessfully appealed to district and appellate courts in Kyiv to restore his immunity, lifted by the Verkhovna Rada in 1999 in connection with embezzlement charges and in 2002 following accusations of involvement in contract killings. He is jailed in the United States awaiting trial on money-laundering charges. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Crash in Iran remains unexplained

KYIV - A Ukrainian commission probing the crash of an Antonov-140 passenger plane in Iran on December 23, 2002, was unable to determine the cause of the accident before a government-imposed January 7 deadline, the Associated Press reported on January 8, quoting a transportation official. Ukrainian experts have excluded a technical malfunction but are still working to determine if errors by Ukrainian pilots, Iranian air-traffic controllers, or a combination of the two caused the crash. No date has been set for the final report. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Yulia still opposes NBU appointment ...

KYIV - Yulia Tymoshenko, the leader of the eponymous opposition bloc, told journalists on January 8 that her group wants Parliament to reconsider the appointment of Serhii Tyhypko as head of the Ukrainian National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), the UNIAN news service reported. According to the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, Mr. Tyhypko's appointment by only a portion of the Verkhovna Rada on December 17, 2002, was illegal. Opposition lawmakers subsequently tried to contest the appointment in court, but their suit was rejected. (RFE/RL Newsline)

... appeals sentences of protesters

KYIV - Yulia Tymoshenko said her bloc has appealed to a Kyiv appellate court over sentences handed down against members of the Ukrainian National Assembly-Ukrainian National Self-Defense, UNIAN reported. The 14 people were given prison terms of between two and five years for participating in anti-presidential riots in Kyiv in March 2001. Ms. Tymoshenko said the sentences were politically motivated. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kyiv asks Warsaw's help with U.S.

KYIV - Ukraine has turned to Poland for help soothing tense relations with the United States, the PAP news agency reported on January 8, quoting an anonymous source "close to the Foreign Ministry." Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski reportedly was to take up the matter during his visit to the United States on January 12-14, the source said. "I think it will be possible to resolve this matter, and the Americans will shortly forget about the Kolchuhas [radar systems that Washington alleges Ukraine sold to Iraq despite an international ban]. This does not mean, of course, that we will arrange [Ukrainian President Leonid] Kuchma's visit to the U.S. or [George W.] Bush's visit to Kyiv," a senior Polish diplomat told PAP. (RFE/RL Newsline)

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