Udovenko-Albright meeting confirms continuity of U.S. policy (03/16/97)

Udovenko-Albright meeting confirms continuity of U.S. policy

by Yaro Bihun
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

WASHINGTON - Foreign Affairs Minister Hennadii Udovenko of Ukraine paid a brief but important visit here on March 7 to discuss NATO expansion and other issues on the U.S.-Ukraine agenda with Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright. He came away expressing satisfaction with the results of his first ministerial meeting with President Clinton's new secretary of state, and said it underscored the post-election continuity of the U.S. "strategic partnership" with Ukraine.

As well, Minister Udovenko said the meeting expressed support for the NATO-Ukraine charter that is being formulated in conjunction with the Western alliance's planned expansion into Eastern Europe.

Welcoming Minister Udovenko at the State Department, Secretary Albright stressed that the United States and Ukraine "are strategic partners in building our shared vision: a Europe at peace, fully integrated and fully free." She said she expects that the charter outlining NATO's relationship with Ukraine will be ready before NATO's July summit in Madrid.

At that meeting, NATO is expected to extend membership to the three Central European countries formerly associated with the Moscow-led Warsaw Pact: Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. At the same time, NATO plans to sign separate agreements establishing special relationships with Ukraine and Russia.

While the NATO-Ukraine charter negotiating process is not yet finished, Minister Udovenko expressed his satisfaction "that today we received the support of the United States on this issue."

Minister Udovenko came to Washington following talks on NATO and other issues with Canadian officials in Ottawa; he will continue talks on the charter with the NATO Council and NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana on March 20 in Brussels. He said the proposed charter includes "increased cooperation" between NATO and Ukraine and "political consultations in crisis situations."

Mr. Udovenko's Washington visit came amid a flurry of other diplomatic meetings on the subject. Earlier in the week, Secretary Albright had talks with Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy and Hungarian Foreign Minister Laszlo Kovacs. Two days later, Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Yegenii Primakov discussed NATO expansion with NATO Secretary-General Solana in Moscow.

While NATO's negotiations with Ukraine appear to be on track, its talks with Russia thus far have left some key issues unresolved. The Russian news agency TASS quoted a Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry official as saying following the March 9 Primakov-Solana meeting that "divergence of opinion over a number of problems still persists."

Ukraine is on record as not opposing NATO expansion. Russia, on the other hand, strongly opposes its expansion and has reportedly set a number of conditions if it is to accept NATO's eastward expansion, among them, a 10-year moratorium on expansion following the acceptance of its first group of members, and the inadmissibility into NATO of any former Soviet republic (e.g. Ukraine) or the Baltic states.

These issues will no doubt be discussed during Mr. Primakov's visit to Washington on March 15-17, and a few days later during the Clinton-Yeltsin summit meeting on March 20 in Helsinki.

Jack Segal, the director of the State Department's Office of Ukrainian, Belarusian and Moldovan affairs, in an interview following the Udovenko-Albright meeting stressed that the NATO-Ukraine process is not dependent or linked to progress on the NATO-Russia agreement. The United States hopes that the Russia-NATO talks will advance, he said, but its advancement is not essential to the success of NATO's relations with Ukraine.

The Clinton administration's position is that no non-NATO country has the right to veto Ukraine's relationship with NATO, Mr. Segal said, adding that the administration is not aware of any NATO member that has any intention of doing so. The State Department official said the United States supports the rapid development of Ukraine's relationship with NATO and that both the United States and Ukraine have expressed their satisfaction with the progress made thus far. Mr. Segal pointed out that Washington had accepted the responsibility in Brussels for advising and assisting Ukraine in the NATO-Ukraine charter negotiating process.

Mr. Udovenko said he underscored the importance of raising the U.S. relationship with Ukraine to that of a "strategic partnership" - a point made a number of times by Secretary Albright during the 90-minute meeting. He added that the two sides "should now work out the specifics of this strategic partnership." (Mr. Udovenko made a similar observation in Washington last October, when he met with then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher.)

To that end, Mr. Udovenko said, he and Secretary Albright agreed that a group of U.S. government experts would visit Ukraine before the end of March to work on these points. In addition to the Ukraine-NATO charter, Mr. Udovenko said he and the secretary of state had discussed a variety of issues, including the work of the Kuchma-Gore Commission and the need for more high-level official contacts. He said he was satisfied with the meeting.

"A number of issues were not resolved, but we identified the problem areas that need our further attention," he added. Mr. Udovenko acknowledged that Ukraine is encountering problems in building its relationships with NATO and the West. "There are problems on all issues," he said. "Ukraine is trying to establish itself, but it has not been easy for Ukraine to establish itself as an independent nation."

"But we're persevering," he added, "and that's why we conduct these negotiations."

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