EDITORIAL: Simply a matter of interpretation (06/01/97)

EDITORIAL

Simply a matter of interpretation

The last several weeks have been pretty busy as European, American and Russian presidents and ministers traveled to each other's countries, signing a roster of agreements, concords, acts and treaties. Getting their NATO ducks all in a row before July, the presidents of Romania and Poland were in Kyiv recently to sign agreements with Ukraine. NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana traveled to both Kyiv and Moscow to discuss special NATO charters with each country. Russia, for its part, has also been busy, recently signing a peace accord with Chechnya (and immediately afterwards, an oil-transport agreement), as well as a charter with Belarus, and agreements with Ukraine to lease the port of Sevastopol for 20 years.

The big meeting, however, was on May 27, as representatives of all the NATO countries and Russia traveled to Paris to sign the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation. Basically this agreement was hailed as a "win-win" document, with only a few dissenters.

Among the information that was not reported by the U.S. media were President Boris Yeltsin's comments in Moscow prior to his departure for Paris on May 26. In reports from ITAR-TASS, Mr. Yeltsin said that "NATO would fully undermine its relations with Russia" if it expanded to include former Soviet republics. He drew the line for NATO expansion to stop at the borders of the former Warsaw Pact countries.

Also not reported in the U.S. media was a meeting of presidents of the Baltic states, Poland and Ukraine on May 27 in Tallinn, where a joint statement was issued in support of the Founding Act, but nonetheless all five presidents stressed that NATO should remain open to all countries that are ready, willing and able to join, including former Soviet republics, and that each country has the right to choose the best method to ensure its own security.

Western analysts have discounted Moscow's rhetoric about limiting NATO expansion as a necessary hard line to prevent a public backlash in Russia against Mr. Yeltsin. However, Russian polls indicate that 14 percent of Russians favor NATO expansion, and 49 percent don't really care. It appears as though only the vested elite in Moscow really cares that expansion be stopped.

Paul Goble of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty noted recently that Mr. Yeltsin's remarks "reflect a tendency of the Russian government to ignore provisions of agreements that Moscow has signed, or unilaterally revise them for its own benefit."

Mr. Goble's observation was borne out in just the past several weeks. Shortly after Belarus and Russia signed an agreement for closer cooperation in April, Mr. Yeltsin went on record to say that he favors a complete merger of Belarus with Russia, forcing Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka to publicly disagree with Mr. Yeltsin over interpretation of the agreement. And in May, before the ink was dry after Mr. Solana's trip to Moscow, Mr. Yeltsin and U.S. officials were already sparring about the interpretation of the Founding Act, the U.S. claiming it was a political document of intent that did not give Russia any real authority in NATO decisions, and Russia claiming it was a legally binding treaty that gave Russia a veto over NATO decisions.

Lest one be lulled into thinking that Moscow's tendency to unilaterally interpret treaties for its own benefit is only a temporary or recent phenomena, one need only look at one of the most profound "differences in interpretation" of a treaty in Ukrainian and Russian history - the 1654 Treaty of Pereiaslav - which Russia "interpreted" to mean the complete destruction of the Ukrainian Kozak State.

It is also not completely clear why all nations are winners in this "win-win" scenario. There is no debate that the goal - regional stability - is good, and it is good that governments in the region are in agreement. However, though Ukraine's government has consistently supported the Founding Act, in the long run, if the NATO-Russia relationship continues to dominate the geo-political dynamic in the region, Ukraine could easily come out a loser. For all intents and purposes, gone for the near future are possibilities of alternative regional alliances.

For example, the possibility advocated by many of Ukraine's reformers and democrats in 1991-1992 was to establish an alliance that would link countries from the Baltics to the Black Sea and would include western NIS and Eastern European countries. In this scenario, Ukraine would have been a major player. Pro-Moscow forces opposed this idea, as did, oddly enough, many in the diaspora who felt that Ukraine should more aggressively become a part of Europe and not settle for "second best."

However, if the current NATO-Russia scenario continues, Ukraine will once again be stuck in a familiar and uncomfortable and second-best position - in the middle between West and East, relegated to being a buffer, not a player. And if NATO honors Russia's demand to stop membership at the borders of the former Warsaw Pact, then Ukraine once again will be left to fend for itself against the ubiquitous sphere of Russian influence.

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