NEWSBRIEFS (09/17/06)

NEWSBRIEFS

Ministers stripped of deputies' seats

KYIV- The Verkhovna Rada on September 12 stripped 13 members of the current government - including Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, First Vice Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and Vice Prime Minister Andrii Kliuyev - of their parliamentary mandates, Ukrainian news agencies reported. In this way the legislature complied with a legal provision obliging Ukrainian lawmakers appointed to governmental posts to give up their parliamentary mandates. Rada Chairman Oleksander Moroz said he will request that the Kyiv Appellate Court strip Justice Minister Roman Zvarych of his parliamentary seat, since Mr. Zvarych has failed to tender his formal resignation as a lawmaker. (RFE/RL Newsline)

President approves NSDC's composition

KYIV - President Viktor Yushchenko has approved the composition of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC), which is a constitutional body for coordinating and monitoring the activities of executive bodies in the sphere of national security and defense, Interfax-Ukraine reported on September 12. The NSDC, chaired by President Yushchenko, is made up of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, First Vice Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, Presidential Secretariat head Oleh Rybachuk, Economy Minister Volodymyr Makukha, Emergency Situations Minister Viktor Baloha, Defense Minister Anatolii Hrytsenko, Security Service of Ukraine chief Ihor Dryzhchanyi, Justice Minister Roman Zvarych, Internal Affairs Minister Yurii Lutsenko, Foreign Affairs Minister Borys Tarasyuk, Health Minister Yurii Poliachenko, Foreign Intelligence Service chief Mykola Malomuzh and acting NSDC Secretary Volodymyr Horbulin. Three other officials are also allowed to participate in NSDC meetings: Verkhovna Rada Chairman Oleksander Moroz, Procurator General Oleksander Medvedko and National Bank of Ukraine Chairman Volodymyr Stelmakh. (RFE/RL Newsline)

President: no change in foreign policy

KYIV - In a September 11 interview for Milano Finanza of Italy, President Viktor Yushchenko said Ukraine would not change its foreign policy course, noting that the country is committed to the principles of democracy and economic development, and is striving for membership in the European Union and NATO. "We have built a state with European state institutions and confirmed the nation's Euro-Atlantic course," he said. "We must continue developing Ukraine democratically, protect human rights and ensure stability and a unitary form of government in the country. We must work to join the WTO [World Trade Organization] and integrate into the European Union and NATO," he added. The president said consolidation of the nation and economic prosperity were among the major challenges facing Ukraine's political elite. (Official Website of the President of Ukraine)

Bloc split over ruling coalition?

KYIV - The Reform and Orders Party (PRP), a constituent of the pro-presidential Our Ukraine bloc, has announced that it is switching to the opposition with regard to the current government and the Anti-Crisis Coalition that supports the Cabinet of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, UNIAN reported on September 11. "The coming to power of such forces as the Party of the Regions (PRU) and the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU) testifies to the existence of a direct threat to democracy, the national-cultural self-identification and development of the nation, and fundamental principles of Ukrainian statehood," the PRP said in a statement. According to the statement, the current government presents a danger of revising "the state-language status, the unitary character of the state, [the state's] foreign-policy course and the fundamentals of civic society." Our Ukraine leaders are now in talks with the PRU, the CPU and the Socialist Party on signing an expanded coalition agreement with them. Our Ukraine, although it has several ministers in the Cabinet, is not a signatory to the Anti-Crisis Coalition accord signed by those three parties in July. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Three opposition deputies join coalition

KYIV - Verkhovna Rada Chairman Oleksander Moroz said during a parliamentary session on September 13 that three deputies from the opposition Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc - Maksym Lutskyi, Inesa Vershynina and Dmytro Kriuchkov - have joined the ruling coalition of the Party of the Regions, the Socialist Party and the Communist Party, UNIAN reported. Oleksander Turchynov of the Tymoshenko Bloc's parliamentary caucus called these deputies "traitors" and announced that the caucus will seek to strip them of their parliamentary mandates via court. According to the election law under which the current Verkhovna Rada was elected on March 26, lawmakers are barred from quitting the caucus of the party from which they were elected. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Yushchenko visits Azerbaijan

KYIV - President Viktor Yushchenko left on September 7 for a two-day visit to Azerbaijan, UNIAN reported. On the agenda are talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and government officials, and a visit to Parliament. Trade and economic cooperation are expected to dominate the talks - primarily pertaining to gas and oil. The Russian daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta speculated on September 7 that Mr. Yushchenko is seeking to reduce Moscow's influence on Ukraine by securing commitments for Azerbaijani energy supplies to feed the Odesa-Brody pipeline. In May Mr. Aliyev had pledged to deliver crude to Europe via the pipeline. Ukraine's Naftohaz and Azerbaijan's state oil company SOCAR are expected to formally sign a cooperation agreement during the visit. The agreement reportedly includes provisions for cooperation in the production, refining, and exploration of oil and gas in the two countries. Azerbaijani media has predicted that Presidents Yushchenko and Aliyev will use their visit to discuss ways of strengthening the GUAM alignment of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova. (RFE/RL Newsline)

President hails era of political stability

KYIV - President Viktor Yushchenko said during a news conference with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Baku on September 7 that Ukraine now enjoys a period of political stability, Interfax-Ukraine reported. "Today Ukraine is in a stage of political stability," Mr. Yushchenko said. "The political forces that participated in the parliamentary elections have followed a fairly complicated path to form the parliamentary majority, the government, the basic views of nationwide values and the attitudes to key issues that stirred the nation for many long years." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Moroz appeals to U.S. re: Melnychenko

KYIV - Verkhovna Rada Chairman Oleksander Moroz said on September 7 that he has sent a letter to the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv asking U.S. authorities to help organize a visit by former Ukrainian presidential security officer Mykola Melnychenko to Ukraine, Ukrainian media reported. According to Mr. Moroz, Mr. Melnychenko may be a key witness in the criminal case involving the murder of Internet journalist Heorhii Gongadze in Ukraine in September 2000. In November 2000 Mr. Moroz publicized recordings allegedly made by Mr. Melnychenko in then President Leonid Kuchma's office that suggested that Mr. Kuchma and other high-ranking officials might have been implicated in the slaying of Gongadze. Mr. Melnychenko, who left Ukraine in 2000, obtained political asylum in the United States in 2001. Mr. Moroz stressed that in urging the resolution of the Gongadze case, he is not guided by a desire to settle scores with Mr. Kuchma or former presidential administration chief Viktor Medvedchuk. "I have never said that they [Kuchma and Medvedchuk] had ordered to kill the man [Gongadze]. But the fact that this whole story originated in their office is beyond any doubt," Mr. Moroz added. Three former officers of the Internal Affairs Ministry are currently standing trial on charges of murdering Gongadze. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Victims of Stalinism monument vandalized

MOSCOW - Unknown persons severely vandalized a bas-relief honoring victims of Stalinism at a memorial cemetery in Medvezhegorsk in Karelia, regnum.ru reported on September 7. Thousands of victims are buried at the site, which attracts thousands of visitors each year from the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Finland and other countries. (RFE/RL Newsline)

PMs seek to extend oil pipeline

KRYNICA GORSKA, Poland - Meeting at an economic forum in Krynica Gorska in Poland on September 6, Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and his Polish counterpart, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, confirmed their intention to extend the Odesa-Brody oil pipeline, which was completed in 2001, to the city of Plock in Poland, UNIAN reported. In May 2003 Ukraine, Poland and the European Union signed a declaration of intent to work toward extending the Odesa-Brody oil pipeline to Poland in order to transport Caspian oil to Europe. The project, however, had failed to progress beyond the planning stage. The Odesa-Brody oil pipeline remained idle until July 2004, when the Ukrainian oil pipeline operator Ukrtransnafta and the Russian oil company TNK-BR signed a three-year contract to ship 9 million tons of Russian oil annually through the Odesa-Brody pipeline in the reverse direction, that is, from Brody to an oil terminal in the Black Sea port of Odesa. "Decisive steps have to be made now. As they say, we need to move from words to deeds. First, light Caspian oil has to be found - and such a possibility is there - from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, who have said they're interested in being involved in the project. Then, a lot in building the pipeline will depend on Poland," Ukrainian Television quoted Mr. Yanukovych as saying in Krynica Gorska. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Tarasyuk meets with Visegrad Group

WASHINGTON - Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Borys Tarasyuk had a working meeting on September 5 with the foreign ministers of the Visegrad Group. This is the first working meeting of ministers in the V-4 + Ukraine format after the formation of new governments both in the Visegrad Group countries and Ukraine. In the course of the negotiations, the foreign affairs ministers of Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic confirmed the priority of developing partner relations with Ukraine, in particular further active involvement of the Ukrainian side in specific projects implemented under the V-4 aegis. The ministers emphasized readiness to continue exchanging experience on the integration of the V-4 countries into European and Euro-Atlantic institutions. Both sides agreed that the key role in the process of further close cooperation between the V-4 and Ukraine belongs to cross-border cooperation. Ukraine urged the V-4 countries to contribute to quicker completion of agreements between Ukraine and the European Union on the simplification of visa procedures. Ukraine's Foreign Affairs Minister Borys Tarasyuk expressed thanks for effective financial support through the International Visegrad Fund that is aimed at implementing projects in training Ukrainian students in leading higher educational institutions of the V-4 countries and preparing experts of Ukraine's ministries and departments in the field of European integration. (Embassy of Ukraine in the United States)

Russia postpones exercises with U.S.

MOSCOW - Russia officially informed the United States on September 5 that it has postponed the third installment of the joint maneuvers known as Torgau, which were slated for late September and early October, allegedly due to unresolved legal issues regarding the presence of foreign soldiers on Russian territory, Russian and international media reported. Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Kostyshin said that all foreign military personnel and not just those from the United States or other NATO countries are affected. He added that the maneuvers will be rescheduled only when the issues are resolved. Several Russian commentators noted that the real reason is probably political, reflecting the cool state of bilateral relations. Others noted that the Russian official media paid much gleeful attention to the anti-American and anti-NATO protests in the Ukrainian port city of Feodosia earlier in the year. Those commentators suggested that it would now be politically awkward for the Russian authorities themselves to play host to U.S. troops. One Defense Ministry official told Interfax that "emotions that are being raised over these maneuvers by certain political forces do not match the scope of the planned exercises." Valery Shantsev, who is governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region where the exercises were to take place, said that the Communists in particular have been "stirring up" anti-American feelings with an eye toward the coming elections. Nine Russian regions will hold their respective elections on October 8, while national parliamentary elections are slated for 2007. The Communist Party had threatened to cut off all roads leading to the site of the exercises if they went ahead. On September 5 state-run television ran footage of party leader Gennady Zyuganov calling the maneuvers "an attempt at building a bridgehead in one of the key regions ... where nuclear centers and major industrial enterprises are concentrated. ... We should not let [U.S. troops] into the heart of Russia." He argued that "after the Balkans, the Middle East, the aggression in Iran, [and the general] unpardonable behavior of the Americans - be it in the Baltics or North Caucasus - these exercises have no point other than being an attempt [by the United States] to stake out a claim in one of the key regions of the Russian Federation." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Lukashenka laments demise of USSR

MIENSK - President Alyaksandr Lukashenka said in an interview with the Russian television channel NTV on September 11 that the emergence of a "unipolar world" was the most negative consequence of the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Belarusian Television reported. "Now there is the biggest absurdity - a unipolar world. The destruction of Yugoslavia, the war in the Balkans and many, many other processes became possible, roughly speaking, thanks to the fact that the Soviet Union is no more. If the Soviet Union had existed, these wars would have never happened," Mr. Lukashenka said. (RFE/RL Newsline)

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