State Department officer briefs Ukrainian American representatives (08/25/96)

State Department officer briefs Ukrainian American representatives

by Yaro Bihun

WASHINGTON - The new office director for Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova at the State Department, Frank Segal, recently briefed a small group of Ukrainian American representatives on the state of U.S.-Ukrainian relations and listened to their concerns about that relationship.

During his first few weeks in his new position, Mr. Segal said, there were two major developments in U.S.-Ukrainian relations: Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko's high-level visit in Washington and the decision to create a commission on U.S.-Ukrainian relations that will be chaired by President Leonid Kuchma and Vice-President Al Gore.

Attending the August 7 briefing at the State Department were Ihor Gawdiak, representing the Ukrainian American Coordinating Council; George Masiuk, president of The Washington Group of Ukrainian American professionals; Nadia K. McConnell, president of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation; and Michael Sawkiw Jr., Washington office director of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America.

The most important message from the Lazarenko visit, Mr. Segal said, was "that there is now one team in Ukraine that agrees on an economic strategy" - a message that was lacking under his predecessor.

"That is a very positive thing, in terms of making progress," he said, "and Ukraine has a lot of progress that needs to be made to satisfy the international financial institutions and to keep the money flowing that will support the economic changes that they want to bring about."

The joint Kuchma-Gore commission, which will be officially launched in the near future, will have separate committees dealing with political, trade and investment, security and global issues in the U.S.-Ukrainian bilateral relationship.

Focusing on some of the bilateral issues that are being discussed, Mr. Segal said the United States wants Ukraine to join the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty the U.S. signed with the Soviet Union in 1972, and to help it break its arms-sales relationships with states that sponsor terrorism, namely Libya and Iran. He also pointed to what he saw as some positive developments in the relationship between Ukraine and Russia.

The new office director said that Washington "introduced the idea" of bringing Ukraine into the ABM Treaty because some of the anti-aircraft systems in Ukraine are similar to those used in Russia's ABM system.

This issue is being negotiated not only with Ukraine, he said, but with the other former Soviet nuclear successor states - Belarus and Kazakstan - as well. He pointed out that its inclusion in the ABM treaty is important for Ukraine "because it identifies Ukraine as an equal player in this very important defense issue."

Mr. Segal also pointed out that Ukraine recently joined 28 other arms-producing countries in the Wassenaar agreement, which obliges arms producers to notify each other about major arms sales.

Ukraine was brought into the agreement in July, after Washington "worked through" with Kyiv the problem of its relations with "some countries that we consider to be bad trading partners," he said.

"In particular, Ukraine has agreed not to trade in (dual-use) products or technologies with states that sponsor terrorism," he said. "So Ukraine's relations with Iran and Libya, in particular, will change. This will be done over a period of time - it has been agreed upon. And in not a long period of time, Ukraine will sever its relationship with military organizations in states that sponsor terrorism," Mr. Segal said. Some of these ties, involving Ukrainian factories, he explained, date back to Soviet times.

Discussing Ukraine's relations with Russia, Mr. Segal said that, although Kyiv has many "open agenda items" with Moscow, Washington has been getting "some very favorable reports" on those issues from both sides.

"On the Black Sea Fleet, talks have resumed, and both sides have told us that they are making progress," he said, adding that following his re-election, Russian President Boris Yeltsin "energized the negotiations that were basically stagnating."

Another important recent development was the initiation of talks on border demarcation between Ukraine and Russia, even though, as Mr. Segal pointed out, "We have always felt that Russia had acknowledged Ukraine's territorial integrity through the Lisbon Protocols and through the Trilateral Agreement."

In the economic area, Mr. Segal said, the United States wants to help Ukraine improve its investment climate by, among other things, reforming its legal and taxation systems.

The American business community is satisfied with Ukraine's progress in privatizing the industrial and commercial part of its economy, he said. "It's not just words on paper," he added. "They are making it easier for companies to get started, and they are making it easier for foreigners to invest in these companies."

That is not the case, however, in the privatization of agriculture, where the process has remained mostly on paper, Mr. Segal said.

Agriculture should be Ukraine's strong point, he observed, "and Ukraine has to have this sector built up. But right now it's at, basically, ground zero. It's a very unproductive agricultural system, very wasteful, and not competitive even with its neighboring states in Eastern Europe."

Ukraine's agricultural problems are an opportunity for the United States, the world leader in agriculture, he said. "Our expertise and our equipment should be something that is of great use to Ukraine," he added.

Asked to comment on the recent New York Times article about a large sale of American John Deere combines to Ukrainian collective farms, which, according to the correspondent, is helping to prop up the old collective system rather than helping the privatization process, Mr. Segal pointed out that the U.S. government had little influence on what was basically a private commercial transaction. He stressed, however, that the collective farm system "will not work in the world agricultural economy."

Asked by Mrs. McConnell about problems in getting the G-7 countries to follow through in their commitments to Ukraine in order to close the Chornobyl nuclear power plant by the year 2000, Mr. Segal admitted, "There is a big open question about the financing, and we're talking about a lot of financing."

The U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, which Mrs. McConnell heads, recently launched "Chornobyl 2000," an initiative aimed at getting the assistance Ukraine needs to close Chornobyl by that deadline as well as helping Ukraine achieve energy self-sufficiency.

Asked if the United States had any objection to the recent commercial aircraft production agreement between Ukraine and Iran, Mr. Segal said that, as in a similar case with a German aircraft manufacturer, even though the deal was with a civilian company and has no military application and is legal, Washington "would prefer that there be no dealings with Iran at all."

"This is a position we prefer that they didn't have, but it is one that will require more persuasion if we're going to get them to that point of view," he said.

"Ukraine will have to make some choices, as all countries will. But as more and more evidence mounts up that Iran is actively supporting terrorism... they'll have to take a position, they'll have to take a stand. And if that means you pay a price, then you have to pay that price."

Mr. Segal was accompanied at the briefing by Nick Greanias, the new Ukraine desk officer at the State Department.

Before becoming office director for Ukrainian, Belarusian and Moldovan affairs in July, Jack Segal was executive assistant to the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs, an area of his personal specialization within the foreign service. He worked on the START negotiating team in the mid-1980s and served on the then-Soviet desk at the State Department, concentrating on arms control and security issues.

In the field, Mr. Segal has served at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and, more recently, opened the U.S. consulate in Yekaterinburg, Russia, and was its first consul-general.