New U.S. ambassador meets the press in Kyiv (06/25/06)

New U.S. ambassador meets the press in Kyiv

by Zenon Zawada
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - In his debut before the Kyiv press corps on June 22, newly appointed U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor Jr. said he expects Ukraine will hold a referendum on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) within the next three years.

Arriving on the heels of a Crimean conflict in which Russophiles fiercely protested the presence of American soldiers, Ambassador Taylor demonstrated extreme care in his remarks and avoided making any comments that could provoke the Russian Federation.

When asked about the U.S. role in the Yushchenko government's NATO aspirations, the envoy said he hopes to sponsor discussions, conferences and roundtables on the positives and negatives of membership.

"We want to help with that informed discussion," Mr. Taylor said. "Then, if that's the decision of the Ukrainian people, then we will certainly be supportive."

Numerous polls conducted this year have indicated that Ukrainians would reject NATO membership if a referendum were held at the time the polls were conducted.

Therefore, those parliamentary factions opposing NATO membership support a referendum, including the Socialist Party of Ukraine, the Party of the Regions and the Communist Party of Ukraine.

When asked by The Ukrainian Weekly whether the U.S. would be disappointed if Ukrainians rejected NATO in a referendum, Ambassador Taylor said he would comment on that question only if the referendum drew nearer.

"It is, however, also a decision for some other allies in NATO," he said. "The NATO allies will have views about new members."

The presence of the Russian Navy in Crimea doesn't interfere with Ukraine's membership in NATO, Mr. Taylor said. "As you know, the Russian government and NATO have a very robust relationship," he said. "I don't think it will be a major problem."

Last month, hundreds of Russophiles swarmed the port of Feodosiya to protest the presence of nearly 200 American soldiers, forcing them into government residences and preventing them from upgrading military bases, building barracks and soccer fields.

Misunderstanding caused the conflict, which will not affect Ukraine's future relations with NATO, the new U.S. ambassador said. "Had the people understood a little better about the kinds of positive things we were hoping to do, we might have had a little different outcome."

In another embarrassing incident involving the U.S., President George W. Bush canceled his visit to Ukraine several weeks earlier because a parliamentary coalition hadn't been formed.

Mr. Taylor said discussions for a possible future visit would begin once the new government is firmly in place. However, the U.S. government didn't express support for one particular coalition over another.

In recent years, Ambassador Taylor had served in numerous crisis areas for the U.S. government.

Until February, he was the U.S. representative in assisting Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip and other parts of the West Bank. He had also served as director of the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office in Baghdad and coordinator of U.S. and international assistance to Afghanistan in Kabul.

That background led numerous Ukrainian journalists to speculate that Mr. Taylor was posted to Ukraine because the U.S. considers Ukraine a crisis area.

"No, the U.S. doesn't expect a crisis here in Ukraine," the ambassador responded. "I guess they figured in Washington that I had paid my dues in difficult places so they were going to send me to a good place this time. So they sent me to Ukraine."

In response to a question about whether he was part of an American military strategy, Mr. Taylor pointed out that his last affiliation with the U.S. military was in 1970, when he served in the Vietnam War.

Regarding the contract the Ukrainian government signed with RosUkrEnergo to provide natural gas, Mr. Taylor said the U.S. government has difficulty understanding RosUkrEnergo's role and advises openness and transparency in all contract negotiations.

However, it's up to the Ukrainian government to renegotiate the contract and the U.S. will provide any advice, if requested, as well as assistance in making factories and other large natural gas consumers more energy efficient, he added.

Ambassador Taylor's predecessor, John Herbst, had referred to the RosUkrEnergo agreement as hard-to-understand and shady.

It isn't Mr. Taylor's first time in Ukraine.

He had visited in the 1990s and in 2000 when he served as coordinator of government assistance to the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

After the U.S. Senate confirmed Mr. Taylor as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine on May 26, four of the prior five ambassadors to Ukraine were present at his swearing-in ceremony. "And they were all very jealous of me being able to come back out to Kyiv and to Ukraine," Mr. Taylor commented.

Mr. Taylor graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and earned a master's degree from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. He had also worked for Sen. Bill Bradley (D.-N.J.) in Washington.

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