Kuchma dismisses Tarasyuk, names Zlenko as foreign minister

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma dismissed Borys Tarasyuk, Ukraine's Western-oriented minister of foreign affairs, from his position on September 30 "in connection with his transfer to another position." Two days later he announced the appointment of career diplomat Anatolii Zlenko to succeed Mr. Tarasyuk.

Mr. Kuchma said Mr. Tarasyuk's dismissal and the appointment of Mr. Zlenko, who was Ukraine's first foreign affairs minister and served in the post through August 1994, did not portend a change in Ukraine's foreign policy.

While Mr. Kuchma praised Mr. Tarasyuk's professionalism and his successes at the United Nations and in expanded relations with Western Europe, he failed to adequately explain why he relieved the 51-year-old of his post, except to say that the situation in the country had changed and that a more diplomatic type was needed.

The allusion by the president to Mr. Tarasyuk's underdeveloped diplomatic skills only supported assertions by many political analysts here that pressure from Russia had ended the Ukrainian foreign minister's tenure at the top of the diplomatic corps. Many analysts have said that Mr. Tarasyuk was far too open in his disdain for close relations with Moscow and pushed too hard for closer ties to NATO and the European Union.

His biggest failure, according to some analyses, was that while President Kuchma made the required overtures to the West, Mr. Tarasyuk could not convince the West to respond accordingly.

Other analysts, however, have drawn a direct link between the foreign affairs minister's dismissal and the scandal surrounding the letter of the U.S. and Canadian ambassadors to President Kuchma, in which the diplomats took the Kuchma administration to task for change in reform policy that in fact did not occur. Some here are speculating that Mr. Tarasyuk may have been the source of the false information.

Mykhailo Pohrebynskyi, director of the Center for Political Research and Conflict Studies, told Interfax-Ukraine that Mr. Tarasyuk was one of several Ukrainian politicians whose actions and dialogues with Western leaders had led to the development of false expectations, which have led the West to exasperation lately.

"The degree of irritation, or even exasperation, which we notice in the attitude towards Ukraine by the West, also has subjective causes," explained Mr. Pohrebynskyi. "The main one, in my opinion, was the false expectation of the West concerning the preparedness of the country, its society and its elite, to make a move towards a brighter democratic future."

The political analyst said he found theories that Moscow had a hand in Mr. Tarasyuk's dismissal "unreasonable," simply because he had been a thorn in its side for so long that Moscow would have made that type of move much sooner.

Mr. Pohrebynskyi said the appointment of Mr. Zlenko has its advantages in that the former ambassador to France has European contacts and is less a policy-maker and more a diplomat. In addition, because Mr. Zlenko had been out of the country for an extended period he was free of much of the political baggage that another appointment might have carried.

Hennadii Udovenko, who preceded Mr. Tarasyuk in the post of foreign affairs minister and today is the leader of the National Rukh of Ukraine Party and a lawmaker, agreed that the change was not as unexpected as might have seemed. The diplomat-turned-politician explained that foreign policy is the domain of the president and is simply carried out by the foreign minister.

"Tarasyuk has fulfilled his mission, and the president must have decided that he has used up his resources for further active implementation of the foreign policy course," explained Mr. Udovenko.

Oleksander Moroz, the Socialist Party lawmaker who remains an arch-foe of the president was much more critical of the move. He said that Mr. Tarasyuk's independence led to his dismissal. He said he believes President Kuchma simply decided he needed to find a more "manageable" person for the post of chief diplomat.

"[Mr. Tarasyuk] was one of the few ministers who would offer an opinion without reading from policy notes," said Mr. Moroz.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, October 8, 2000, No. 41, Vol. LXVIII

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