2005: THE YEAR IN REVIEW
U.S.-Ukraine relations marked by Orange glow
Relations between the United States and Ukraine in 2005 began in the glow of the Orange Revolution that brought Viktor Yushchenko to the presidency in Ukraine and opened a new chapter in the bilateral relationship.
The change was obvious, beginning with President Yushchenko's inauguration on January 23. President George W. Bush, who in past years had all but shunned his predecessor, Leonid Kuchma, telephoned Mr. Yushchenko on the eve of the inauguration, congratulating him on his and "democracy's victory" in Ukraine and pledging his support of Ukraine.
Secretary of State Colin Powell was selected to head the U.S. delegation to the inauguration, which began a year of high-level meetings and visits unseen in previous years, the highlight of which was President Yushchenko's official visit to the United States in April.
During a joint news conference following his meeting with President Yushchenko in Kyiv, Secretary Powell said they discussed not only bilateral issues but also Ukraine's movement toward Euro-Atlantic integration.
"I just want to assure you that you will continue to enjoy the full support of the American government and the American people, as you move forward now to undertake the efforts that the Ukrainian people are expecting," he told the newly inaugurated president standing beside him.
President Yushchenko was more specific about the meeting agenda, which, he said, included prospects for Ukraine receiving market-based economy status, acceptance into the World Trade Organization, opening of the U.S. market to more Ukrainian exports, the repeal of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment restrictions on Ukraine, as well as Iraq.
In addition to U.S. Ambassador John Herbst and Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky, the U.S. delegation to the inauguration included three Ukrainian American representatives: Ukrainian Federation of America President Vera Andryczyk, U.S.-Ukraine Foundation President Nadia Komarnyckyj McConnell and Northern Illinois University Adjunct Professor Myron Kuropas.
These issues would be revisited in subsequent bilateral meetings throughout 2005.
The next high-level meeting followed three days later in Krakow, Poland, where President Yushchenko and Vice-President Dick Cheney came to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi extermination camps in nearby Auschwitz and Birkenau.
Afterwards, at a news conference, the vice-president called President Yushchenko's accomplishments "remarkable and inspiring." He said that the new Ukrainian president was "an ally in freedom's cause" and that "President Bush and the American people stand with him.''
President Yushchenko also received plaudits from prominent Congressional leaders, among them Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who one day after his inauguration nominated him and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili for the Nobel Peace Prize "In leading freedom movements in their respective countries." They said in their nominating letter that Presidents Yushchenko and Saakashvili "won popular support for the universal values of democracy, individual liberty and civil rights."
Later, in an interview with the Voice of America on February 4, Sen. McCain spoke, among other things, about the need for U.S. assistance to Ukraine to help ease its energy predicament "because they are so dependent on Russia for energy supplies."
That problem would come to a head in the last week of 2005, when Russia demanded that Ukraine pay a more than fourfold increase for Russian gas, threatened a complete shut-off if it refused, and then, actually, turned off the supply, at least for a short while on New Year's Day.
On the same day that Sens. Clinton and McCain were nominating the Ukrainian president for the Nobel Prize, their Senate colleagues Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) introduced legislation to get Ukraine from under the Jackson-Vanik amendment and grant it normal trade relations with the United States. The senators said that the Cold War-era trade restrictions that denied "most favored nation" trade status to imports from Soviet Bloc countries, were no longer applicable to Ukraine.
Two weeks later, on February 11, Sens. Clinton and McCain and nine other members of the House and Senate traveled to Kyiv, where they discussed these same issues with Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn and other senior members of the Ukrainian government.
And, on February 17, Reps. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), Howard Berman (D-Calif.), Tom Lantos (D-Calif) and Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) introduced a similar measure in the House of Representatives to remove Ukraine from under the Jackson-Vanik amendment.
While invitations, in general terms, for an exchange of presidential visits between Washington and Kyiv were exchanged during President Yushchenko's inauguration, the official announcement that the Ukrainian president would visit the United States and have talks with President Bush on April 4 was made during Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk's visit to Washington on March 11. In his meetings with senior administration officials and congressional leaders, Mr. Tarasyuk prepared the groundwork for the presidential visit and focused on some of the issues that would be discussed. He was the first top-level Ukrainian government official to visit Washington since the changeover in Kyiv.
The highpoint of the developing Ukrainian-American relationship came on April 4, when President Yushchenko met with President Bush at the White House, beginning his four-day visit to the United States, which also included stops in Chicago and Boston.
In the joint statement following the White House meeting, the two sides affirmed "a new era of strategic partnership between our nations and friendship between our peoples."
In a meeting that lasted more than an hour, the two leaders discussed Ukraine's future in the World Trade Organization, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and other Euro-Atlantic institutions, the importance of continuing on a path of democratic and economic reforms, relations between Ukraine and Russia, Iraq and the importance of cooperation in stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
White House Spokesman Scott McClellan noted that President Bush "made it clear that as Ukraine moves forward on democratic and economic reforms, the United States will be there to support them in those efforts."
First Lady Kateryna Chumachenko Yushchenko accompanied the Ukrainian president on the visit, as did the senior members of his Cabinet and staff.
During his first day in Washington, Mr. Yushchenko also met with Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and addressed students at Georgetown University, after which he and the Ukrainian delegation flew to Chicago, the first lady's home town, where his program included an address at the Chicago Council of Foreign Relations.
On April 5 he flew on to Boston, where he received the JFK Profile in Courage Award at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum and visited Nastia Ovchar, a 5-year-old Ukrainian girl undergoing treatment at Boston's Shriners Hospital for serious burns she suffered while rescuing her two-year-old sister in Ukraine.
President Yushchenko returned to Washington for the conclusion of his U.S. visit on April 6, which included addressing a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress, laying a wreath and addressing a rally at the Shevchenko monument and being the guest of honor at a banquet sponsored by the Ukrainian American community.
In his address to Congress, he thanked the United States for its support during the Orange Revolution and offered specific recommendations on how the United States could assist Ukraine in the future.
Members of Congress and their guests, some wearing orange lapel pins, warmly greeted him with a standing ovation as he entered the hall to chants of "Yushchenko, Yushchenko." His 40-minute address was interrupted by applause 26 times - five times with standing ovations.
President Yushchenko was the 97th foreign dignitary to address a joint meeting of Congress in the history of the United States. The first was the French general and Revolutionary War hero the Marquis de Lafayette in 1824.
Soon after President Yushchenko's Washington visit there were noticeable signs of an improving relationship:
Meanwhile, the Yushchenko government recalled its ambassador in Washington, Mykhailo Reznik, in July. His position remained unfilled through the end of 2005. The appointment of his replacement, Foreign Affairs Minister Oleh Shamshur, was announced in mid-December, but he was not expected to arrive in Washington until mid-January or later.
A number of important visits took place in the last quarter of the year, not the least of which was a return visit to the United States by President Yushchenko in September to attend the opening of the U.N. General Assembly in New York and to receive the Philadelphia Liberty Medal. While in New York, he had a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Rice which focused on bilateral issues as well as the recent major governmental changes in Ukraine. He also delivered the keynote address at the founding dinner of the Orange Circle, a new international initiative aimed at supporting democratic reforms in Ukraine.
As President Yushchenko returned to Kyiv, his acting foreign minister, Borys Tarasyuk, went on for more talks in Washington, discussing, in addition to the normal bilateral issues, the recent internal political upheaval in Ukraine resulting from the dismissal of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and her cabinet. While dramatic, he said at one public venue, these events should not be viewed as a tragedy, but rather as "evidence of democracy, a part of a democratic process."
In early November, Ukraine's new prime minister, Yurii Yekhanurov, spent two days in Washington meeting with top Bush administration officials, international financial institutions and business leaders, discussing primarily economic issues.
On November 8 the Millennium Challenge Corp., a U.S. government corporation whose aid to countries worldwide is based on the principle that aid is most effective when it reinforces good governance, economic freedom and investments in people that promote economic growth and elimination of extreme poverty, selected 13 countries to participate in the Threshold Program for fiscal year 2006. The Threshold Program is designed to assist countries that do not qualify but are close and are committed to undertaking the reforms necessary to improve policy performance that may eventually help them qualify for Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) compact assistance. Ukraine was among those 13 countries. It should be noted that Ukrainian American John Hewko is the vice-president for country relations at the Millennium Challenge Corp.
The Jackson-Vanik amendment issue came back into the forefront of the news on November 18, when the U.S. Senate passed a bill sponsored by Sen. Richard Lugar to repeal the Jackson-Vanik amendment for Ukraine and grant Ukraine Permanent Normal Trade Relations.
Various groups - among them the Jackson-Vanik Graduation Coalition, headed by former U.S. ambassadors to Ukraine Steven Pifer and William Miller; a group of 61 former and current Peace Corps volunteers who served in Ukraine; and the Central and East European Coalition - began organizing a push to have the House of Representatives pass a similar measure before the Christmas holiday recess.
By the end of 2005, however, the House of Representatives had not acted on that measure.
As the year was coming to a close, Secretary of State Rice on December 7 paid a brief visit to Kyiv, where she met with President Yushchenko and addressed the student body of Kyiv State University.
Earlier, Chicago's Mayor Richard J. Daley came to the Ukrainian capital, which has a Sister-City relationship with Chicago. The three-day visit took place in October.
In addition to performing his official representational assignment, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst became active in charitable endeavors as he and his wife, Nadia Herbst, on October 15 hosted a fund-raising reception for the Children of Chornobyl Relief and Development Fund, to help purchase new equipment for the neonatal intensive care unit at Kyiv City Children's Hospital.
On December 21, in his official capacity, Ambassador Herbst presented the government of Ukraine with the first delivery of reagents, detection kits, laboratory supplies and protective equipment to bolster Ukraine's capacity to detect and combat avian influenza. Ukraine has detected instances of avian flu in Crimea.
The condition and future development of post-Orange-Revolution Ukraine and America's role in it was the subject of a number of briefings, seminars and conferences in Washington during 2005. The earliest, in January, was organized by the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus in co-sponsorship with the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America. Titled "Ukraine: Then and Now," this two-hour briefing looked at the results of the Ukrainian presidential elections and the future of U.S.-Ukraine relations.
In early February, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars presented a panel discussion with the State Department's point man on Ukraine, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs John F. Tefft, and two former U.S. ambassadors to Ukraine, Steven Pifer and William Green Miller.
Describing Washington's immediate intentions in the bilateral relationship, Mr. Tefft said that "there is a very clear sense that we now have to get very serious, to put real resources to it, to really work to make sure that the changes that have been mentioned are brought into being - that we deliver, that we help President Yushchenko and his team deliver on that. And that, I think, goes from the top on down."
Ambassador Pifer suggested the need for flexibility in Washington's assistance effort: "What we should be looking at is our assistance programs and re-calibrate them so that we're putting a maximum amount of assistance to those areas that the (Yushchenko) government has focused on now."
The planned withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from Iraq by the end of 2005 came up during another briefing, on March 3, at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington by Sen. Lugar. While the announced withdrawal was "not a plus factor" in its relationship with the United States, he said, it was being handled "tactfully" by the Yushchenko government.
The last of the 1,600 Ukrainian troops sent to Iraq in 2003 returned home on December 29.
As for U.S. assistance for Ukraine's changeover under the Yushchenko administration, Sen. Lugar cautioned American policy makers not to repeat the mistakes of the 1980s, when democratic movements were taking root in Latin America. "Then, unfortunately - I wouldn't say our country forgot Latin America - but our attention moved on."
"We really have to have an attention span that is supportive and cognizant of these changes if they are to take root," he said. And Ukraine, he added, "offers an extraordinary opportunity in terms of the strength of the people, well-educated, lots of talent, badly in need of capital, very much in need of political support on all fronts."
In March, the Ukraine-U.S. Business Networking Series in New York brought together more than 300 experts from the corporate and academic world, as well as key government representatives of the United States and Ukraine to evaluate Ukraine's ability to advantageously compete in the global economic arena.
In April, the Columbia University Ukrainian Studies Program, together with the Ukraine-U.S. Business Networking Series: Forum II hosted representatives of the Ukrainian government for the panel discussion "Ukraine's Economic Prospects following the Orange Revolution."
In June, the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation hosted the first working session of its Policy Dialogue Project in Washington. This two-year State Department-funded project was designed to complement official bilateral discussions and be a practical means to assist in the restoration of a genuine and meaningful strategic partnership between the United States and Ukraine.
And September saw the sixth annual conference of the "Ukraine's Quest for Mature Nation Statehood" series sponsored by the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America. This year's sessions, held at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, dealt with "Ukraine's transition to an established national identity."
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, January 15, 2006, No. 3, Vol. LXXIV
| Home Page |