NEWSBRIEFS (11/09/03)

NEWSBRIEFS

Opposition: authorities thwart Rada...

KYIV - Our Ukraine leader Viktor Yushchenko charged on November 4 that authorities have beguan obstructing the work of the Verkhovna Rada in order to prompt a change in its leadership, Interfax reported. Mr. Yushchenko was commenting on the early closure of the parliamentary session the same day after the legislature failed to support an opposition motion to hear government officials report on the foiled Our Ukraine congress in Donetsk. After that motion was voted down, lawmakers from Our Ukraine, the Socialist Party and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc blocked the parliamentary rostrum. Socialist Party Chairman Oleksander Moroz backed Mr. Yushchenko's position, saying the parliamentary majority was instructed by the presidential administration to reject the motion and thus block the work of the legislature. (RFE/RL Newsline)

... but pro-government party disagrees

KYIV - The Political Executive Council of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych's Labor Party issued a statement on November 4 saying that Our Ukraine took advantage of the "no" vote on the Our Ukraine congress to implement a "radical plan of political destabilization in Ukraine," Interfax reported. "Blocking the parliamentary work, undermining the budget process, dissolving the Verkhovna Rada, holding early parliamentary elections - these are main stages of [Our Ukraine's] strategic plan to come to power," the statement charges. "The struggle of Viktor Yushchenko and his team for the post of president has been deliberately moved to Parliament." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Serbia/Montenegro leader in Kyiv

KYIV - Serbia and Montenegro President Svetozar Marovic met with his Ukrainian counterpart, Leonid Kuchma, in Kyiv on November 4, Interfax and UNIAN reported. Following their talks, the sides signed accords on military cooperation and tourism. Mr. Kuchma said he favors signing an agreement with Serbia and Montenegro on a free-trade zone and simplifying the visa formalities between the two countries. "The introduction by the European Union of a visa regime [with Ukraine] is one of the most negative steps taken after the Berlin Wall was brought down," Mr. Kuchma said during a news conference. (RFE/RL Newsline)

CPU wants Ukraine's peacekeepers out

KYIV - Communist lawmakers Petro Symonenko and Ihor Alekseyev have submitted a draft bill to the Verkhovna Rada providing for the pullout from Iraq of Ukrainian peacekeepers, Interfax reported on November 4. The legislature adopted a bill on June 5 allowing the government to send a contingent of up to 1,800 troops to the Polish-administered stabilization zone in Iraq. A similar draft bill on a pullout has already been submitted by the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc. One Ukrainian serviceman has died and more than 10 have been injured in Iraq. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Tuzla to be part of broader talks

KYIV - Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Igor Ivanov discussed the recent Russian-Ukrainian spat over Tuzla Island with his Ukrainian counterpart, Kostyantyn Gryshchenko, in Kyiv on October 30, Interfax reported. The two politicians reportedly agreed that the Tuzla problem will be resolved along with other issues pertaining to the status and the use by both countries of the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait. A number of bilateral working groups will be set up to tackle these issues. "On behalf of our side, it was clearly said that we consider the island of Tuzla an inalienable part of Ukrainian territory," Mr. Gryshchenko told journalists. Asked about whether he considers Tuzla to be Ukrainian, Mr. Ivanov said this is an object of negotiation. "There are different documents that offer different interpretations of the issue," Mr. Ivanov said. Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, who also met with Mr. Ivanov, said Ukraine understands now that the decision to build a contentious dam between Russia's Krasnodar Krai and Tuzla was taken at a regional level and that the dam is intended to protect Russia's coastline. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Our Ukraine cancels Donetsk congress ...

KYIV - A forum of democratic forces planned by Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine in Donetsk for October 31 did not take place due to an apparently coordinated attempt to prevent the gathering and fan anti-Yushchenko sentiments in the city, Ukrainian media reported. The planned venue was filled by some 2,000 people shouting anti-Yushchenko slogans, while many groups staged anti-Yushchenko rallies in the city and the city itself was adorned with billboards carrying an image of Mr. Yushchenko extending his hand in a Nazi salute and calling for the "purity of the nation." "What is going on now is a pathological situation [provoked by] the authorities," Interfax quoted Mr. Yushchenko as saying in Donetsk. A rally of several hundred Yushchenko supporters in Donetsk passed a resolution proposing him as a candidate in the 2004 presidential election. Our Ukraine canceled the gathering due to "security considerations," Interfax reported, quoting Our Ukraine lawmaker Mykola Tomenko. (RFE/RL Newsline)

... gathers instead in Lviv

LVIV - Some 15,000 people took part in a forum of supporters of democracy that was organized by Our Ukraine in Lviv on November 1, Interfax reported. Our Ukraine leader Viktor Yushchenko told the crowd, which was gathered in front of the regional-administration building, that he believes it is possible for democratic forces to field a single candidate in the 2003 presidential ballot. Mr. Yushchenko assured participants that draft bills aimed at amending the Constitution of Ukraine in order to empower the Verkhovna Rada to elect a president will not be accepted. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kuchma nominates new top prosecutor

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma has proposed Verkhovna Rada Vice-Chairman Hennadii Vasiliev to the Parliament for approval as the country's new procurator general, Interfax reported on November 3, quoting presidential spokeswoman Olena Hromnytska. Mr. Kuchma sacked the previous procurator general, Sviatoslav Piskun. "Changing the loyal procurator general for a more loyal one testifies to the fact that the authorities intend to transform the Procurator General's Office into a 'punishing sword of the party,' as it was in 1937," Our Ukraine leader Yushchenko alleged on November 1. Mr. Yushchenko did not rule out that Mr. Piskun's sacking might have been linked to "new circumstances" in the case of slain journalist Heorhii Gongadze. Mr. Vasiliev, born in 1953, was elected to the legislature in a single-seat constituency in the Donetsk Oblast in 2002. He had served in two previous Parliaments. He was chief prosecutor in the Donetsk Oblast in 1991-1996 and again in 1997-1998. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Ukrainian peacekeepers ambushed

KYIV - Two armored personnel carriers with 17 Ukrainian peacekeepers aboard were ambushed on the night of October 28 near As Suwayrah, northwest of their base at Kut in southern Iraq, said Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Kostiantyn Khivrenko. Three mines exploded under the vehicles, and militants then opened fire. Five of them were hospitalized in Baghdad, and two others suffered only slight injuries. Mr. Khivrenko said that the wounded soldiers' condition was stable. A Ukrainian peacekeeper died earlier in October when the vehicle he was riding in turned over. Some 1,650 Ukrainian troops are serving in the Polish-led stabilization force patrolling southern Iraq. (Yahoo! News)

Tuzla row hinders Ukraine's integration

KYIV - Anatolii Halchynskyi, director of Ukraine's National Institute of Strategic Studies and an adviser to President Leonid Kuchma, told Interfax on October 29 that Russia's questioning of Ukraine's ownership of Tuzla Island in the Kerch Strait is intended to hamper Ukraine's integration into Europe. "Under NATO's statutory documents, the political demands of the countries striving for membership in the alliance include, among other things, the settlement of external territorial controversies," Mr. Halchynskyi said, adding that the "artificial problem of sovereignty" over Tuzla "will most probably be fueled by the Russian side over a long period of time." Mr. Halchynskyi noted that the construction of the controversial dam in the Kerch Strait, which he called "the Tuzla provocation," was started by Russia a week after the Ukraine-EU summit in Yalta, which in his opinion "clearly and unequivocally confirmed the invariability" of Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic course. (RFE/RL Newsline)

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