Ambassador Shcherbak lauds outcome of Gore visit to Kyiv (08/09/98)

Ambassador Shcherbak lauds outcome of Gore visit to Kyiv

by Yaro Bihun
Special to The UkrainianWeekly

WASHINGTON - Ukraine's Ambassador to the United States Yuri Shcherbak says he is pleased with the outcome of Vice-President Al Gore's recent visit to Kyiv and his talks with President Leonid Kuchma, and with the results of the second meeting of the U.S.-Ukraine Binational Commission.

During a press briefing at the Embassy on July 28, soon after he returned from Kyiv, Ambassador Shcherbak said the July 22-23 Kuchma-Gore talks yielded many positive results, including an indication of U.S. support for Ukraine in its effort to obtain $2.5 billion in low-interest Extended Fund Facility credits from the International Monetary Fund. These credits, he said, "are absolutely necessary" for the stabilization of the financial situation in Ukraine.

Dr. Shcherbak also welcomed America's active interest in getting the Chornobyl nuclear power plant safeguarded and closed by 2000.

"I must stress that the American side conducted itself like a real strategic partner, a real friend of Ukraine," showing concern and offering its assistance and good counsel, Ambassador Shcherbak said.

He said the United States is willing to fund a feasibility study of Ukraine's proposal to have Caspian Sea oil go through Ukraine on its way to Western Europe, by way of the Odesa-to-Brody pipeline. The U.S. was forthcoming also in providing assistance for the development of the Kharkiv Oblast, which gave up some potential revenue when Ukraine agreed - under U.S. pressure - not to sell Kharkiv-produced electric generators for a nuclear plant Russia is building in Iran.

Both President Kuchma and Vice-President Gore - who by Ambassador Shcherbak's estimate, had some 12 hours of meetings of one form or another during the visit - expressed their satisfaction with the results of the meetings, he said. President Kuchma characterized them as "positive to the maximum for Ukraine, especially in the difficult situation in which it finds itself."

"We feel that this visit resulted in strengthening our bilateral cooperative relationship, in strengthening our strategic partnership," Ambassador Shcherbak said. "We are convinced that the creation of this commission and its work over the past year - we can now pass judgment on it - has demonstrated its viability and its becoming an effective mechanism for addressing various issues and solving problems that come up between our two countries."

Looking back at the joint statement released after the first session of the Kuchma-Gore Commission meeting in Washington last year, Dr. Shcherbak said that some 80 percent of the action items contained in that document were actually carried out over the past year.

More reforms are still needed, especially in Ukraine's energy sector, where some changes had been made, and in agriculture, "which experienced fewer positive changes," he said.

Ambassador Shcherbak admitted that getting the necessary reform packages through the Verkhovna Rada will not be easy, but he expects progress nonetheless.

"I feel that we are now at a very important juncture as the Verkhovna Rada moves from political declarations to down-to-earth action. And there has always been a difference - even in the United States it's one thing to make promises and another to lead a country," he stressed.

"No doubt there will more arguments and large problems with the passage of legislation, simply because they deal with the core concerns of ideology of those who were elected to the Verkhovna Rada and now also deal with their financial and economic interests," he said, adding, however, that "there is a kind of positive approach there, a realization that we have to proceed with reforms."

He also poined out that over the past few months President Kuchma's reform decrees went into effect "without any serious opposition by the Verkhovna Rada."

Responding to a question about Ukrainian military planes allegedly being used for transporing arms from Bulgaria to Eritrea, where one of the planes crashed, killing its crew, Ambassador Shcherbak said the Ukrainian government does not have an official statement on the subject and that the accident is still being investigated as to its cause as well as its cargo.

Asked about press reports in Ukraine about the possibility of his appointment as deputy minister of defense, he said, "I know about these rumors as well as their origins." There were, indeed, discussions about the need for a deputy for political affairs position at the ministry, which also mentioned him as a potential candidate, Dr. Shcherbak said. "But I was not a party in those discussions," he added.

Ambassador Shcherbak said he had broached the issue during his briefing of President Kuchma on the eve of the Kuchma-Gore Commission meeting. The president, however, did not pursue the issue.

"I think he simply was not ready and possibly had not made up his mind yet. I don't know," Ambassador Shcherbak said. And without the president's action, he could not nor did he want to confer about this with the minister of defense while in Kyiv.

"So the issue is postponed, and I don't know how it will be decided, but the president understands well that I am completing my fourth year here. So we'll await his decision," he said. "My future is completely in the hands of the president."