Turning the pages back... March 9, 2003 (03/07/04)

Turning the pages back...

March 9, 2003

At about this time last year, Ukraine and the United States appeared to be turning the corner in their bilateral relationship, reported our Washington correspondent, Yaro Bihun. That relationship had been going through a difficult period, according to Kostyantyn Gryshchenko, then ambassador of Ukraine to the United States.

"Recently, I believe, we have been concentrating more on the positive side of things to be done, and that should help us to get away from what was the main theme of problems of the last year and into the new year of open opportunities," he told our Washington correspondent.

Ambassador Gryshchenko's assessment, made in remarks in late February 2003 at a forum on U.S.-Ukraine relations sponsored by The Washington Group, an association of Ukrainian American professionals, came two weeks after a senior State Department official signaled that Washington was willing to put aside the biggest irritant in their relationship - the allegation that Ukraine sold the Kolchuha air defense system to Iraq.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Steven Pifer said then that the Bush administration decided to "basically disagree" with Kyiv on whether it sold the air defense system to Iraq and not allow the issue to push the relationship into what he called a "deep freeze."

Ambassador Gryshchenko said that by concentrating on positive bilateral interaction, such as Ukraine's decision to send a nuclear-biological-chemical (NBC) defense battalion to the Gulf region, adopt adequate measures against money-laundering, continue cooperating in the war against terrorism and in non-proliferation, the two countries can move away from concentrating on - though not completely ignoring - the negatives in the relationship.

The recent difficult period in U.S.-Ukraine relations was "a period of lost opportunities," Ambassador Gryshchenko said. It was also a period of "very difficult bilateral debate, of very frank exchanges" that now should serve both countries well as they move forward on a positive agenda.

One of the lessons learned was that "we cannot hide from problems," Ambassador Gryshchenko said. "If we do have a problem, we have to face it, and we have to be frank and open about it, because it will not fade away, and we cannot really run away from it."

"If it is Kolchuha, then we need to get to the bottom of it," he said. "And here we have tried our best, and we continue on this path. We know that there are no Kolchuhas that Ukraine is responsible for in Iraq. We know that there are no contracts, that there are no deliveries, and we need to establish this as a fact."

He stressed that the Kolchuha and other unresolved issues must not be allowed to remain as a barrier to improving the bilateral relationship, which is important not only to the two countries but to the "dynamics of the political situation in Europe" as well. "We need to re-establish trust, to reestablish confidence," he said. "It can only be done through practical steps - practical steps that we have demonstrated recently."

Asked about the absence of bilateral contacts at the highest levels, Ambassador Gryshchenko said that Ukraine, of course, would like to see them return, but not just for the sake of such visits or contacts themselves. They are important in pushing through new initiatives and as signals about the state of relations, he explained.

Source: "Ukraine's ambassador to U.S. sees new opening in bilateral relations," by Yaro Bihun, The Ukrainian Weekly, March 9, 2003, Vol. LXXI, No. 10.

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