Ukrainian advance team paves the way for Kuchma's D.C. visit (02/18/96)

Ukrainian advance team paves the way for Kuchma's D.C. visit

by Marta Kolomayets
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - An advance team of Ukrainian government officials, including Vice-Premier of Economics Roman Shpek and Deputy Foreign Minister Anton Buteyko left for Washington on February 12 to set up meetings for President Leonid Kuchma, who will visit Washington on February 20-22 to strengthen U.S.-Ukrainian relations.

President Kuchma, who is traveling to the United States on a private invitation from Freedom House, a human rights organization, will meet with U.S. President Bill Clinton on February 21 to discuss the future of relations between the two countries. [It should be noted that President Kuchma was invited to Washington for a state visit by President Clinton in November 1994 and President Clinton visited Kyiv in May 1995.]

He is also scheduled to meet with Vice-President Al Gore and deliver an address on "The Process of Democratization in Ukraine as a Stabilizing Factor in Europe," during a dinner in his honor.

Although Freedom House issued the invitation to President Kuchma, insiders here report that President Kuchma initiated the visit in order to solidify Ukraine's relations with the U.S. government during this presidential election year in America. U.S. government officials are also interested in good relations with Ukraine, which as an economically depressed but stable democracy in Europe is becoming increasingly recognized.

Given that this is also a presidential election year in Russia, where democracy is on shaky ground and where President Borys Yeltsin's chances to win re-election are diminishing as the war in Chechnya continues to rage, political observers here speculate that the Ukrainian leader may also be concerned about his country's dubious position come June.

Indeed, it seems that the United States has, in recent months, become concerned about Russian policy and personnel changes that are moving Russia away from reform.

Reuters reported last week that during a visit to Helsinki to meet with Russia's new foreign minister, Yevgeny Primakov, Secretary of State Warren Christopher took time out on February 8 to meet with President Kuchma, who was on a state visit to Finland at that time. The two leaders met for 35 minutes.

It was during this time that Mr. Christopher said the U.S. would support Ukraine's bid for additional loans of $693 million from the International Monetary Fund. Also at the time the announcement of President Kuchma's impending visit to Washington was made, and the wheels were set into motion for Mr. Christopher to visit Kyiv on March 19, a stopover on his way for talks in Moscow.

The focus on Ukraine in Helsinki, reported Reuters, seemed designed to underscore to Russia and to Foreign Minister Primakov that the United States intends to pursue independent ties with Ukraine and to support Kyiv in its efforts to get more IMF credits in order to continue with market reforms.

"We want to be of help in any way we can as they stay on the path to economic reform. We are supporting the reform effort and will be supporting them in connection with the IMF," said Mr. Christopher in Helsinki. Ukraine has already received $800 million from the IMF and is hoping to receive a fourth tranche of credits by early April.

"We have very high regard for him and his courage. He's moved his country very much in the direction of economic reform. We want to be of help," Mr. Christopher said, speaking of the U.S. relationship with President Kuchma.

In 1996, Ukraine is scheduled to receive $225 million in U.S. aid, making it the third largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance after Israel and Egypt.

According to Nicholas Burns, a spokesman for the State Department, when Mr. Christopher learned that President Kuchma would be in Finland at the same time as the U.S. diplomat, he expressed his desire to meet with President Kuchma. (Mr. Kuchma's state visit to Finland had originally been planned for January, but Mr. Kuchma had to postpone it to attend the state funeral of Francois Mitterand in Paris.)

"There is no government that is closer to us right now than Ukraine," Mr. Burns told Reuters, who praised Mr. Kuchma as a reformer who has "fundamentally transformed Ukraine and its economy in the last 18 months."

The Ukrainian advance team was scheduled to meet with IMF and World Bank representatives and U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union David Lipton, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and representatives of the National Security Council. The Ukrainian delegation also included Minister of Foreign Economic Relations Serhiy Osyka and State Property Fund Chairman Yuriy Yekhanurov.

During a closed meeting between William Green Miller, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, and President Kuchma on February 13, a number of political and economic issues were discussed for the Washington agenda. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Hennadiy Udovenko was also present at the meeting.

President Kuchma told Ambassador Miller that Ukraine is committed to closing down the Chornobyl nuclear power station, but could not be expected to do so without the assistance of international organizations. Ukraine has pledged to close down the station, where a reactor exploded in April 1986 - 10 years ago - by the year 2000, however, this can only be done with financial aid from the West and only if Ukraine finds alternate energy sources. Both men agreed that the issue of Chornobyl would be high on the agenda during talks in Washington.

Volodymyr Ohryzko, the chief of the foreign policy department of the presidential administration, told Interfax-Ukraine that President Kuchma will ask for U.S. assistance in helping Ukraine settle the issue of Russian compensation for tactical weapons shipped out of Ukraine in 1992.

Since that time, Ukraine has received no compensation, although the issue has been brought up in Ukrainian-Russian negotiations during the last year.

Indeed, the United States has often praised Ukraine for its commitment to dismantle its nuclear arsenal, which was, at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fourth largest in the world.

By this summer, the last of Ukraine's 176 long-range missiles are due to be shipped to Russia for dismantling. Under a trilateral agreement between the United States, Russia and Ukraine, Ukraine's missiles are broken down in Russia, financed by the United States. The uranium is extracted from the warheads, reprocessed and sent back to Ukraine, where it is used for energy.

Whereas the compensation for shipping strategic missiles to Russia was worked out in detail in early 1994 via a historic plan that intended to give Ukraine economic relief and help the United States rid itself of the threat of 176 intercontinental ballistic missiles targeted at the United States, no such plan has been worked out for tactical, or short-range missiles, which can be targeted only to a 1,000 kilometer range (600 miles).

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