U.S. ambassador offers comments on U.S.-Ukraine relations (PART I) (03/25/01)

U.S. ambassador offers comments on U.S.-Ukraine relations

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Carlos Pascual arrived in Kyiv on October 19, 2000, as the fourth United States ambassador to Ukraine. Prior to his appointment, he served as a special assistant to President Bill Clinton and the senior director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia at the National Security Council (NSC), posts he held from July 1998 through January 2000. While there as a leading formulator of U.S. policy towards Ukraine, he guided policies to encourage Ukraine's commitment to democratic and market reforms, and its integration into Europe.

Mr. Pascual, 42, a career member of the Foreign Service, joined the NSC in June 1995 as director for Russian, Ukrainian and Eurasian affairs. In 1994-1995 he served as deputy assistant administrator for Europe and the New Independent States at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). From 1992 to 1994 Mr. Pascual was the director of the Office of Program Analysis and Coordination for the NIS Task Force, where he helped develop the first U.S. assistance programs for that region.

Mr. Pascual's first five months as the head of the U.S. mission in Ukraine have been marked by the election of a new president in the United States and a political crisis in Ukraine, events that a new ambassador generally does not confront in the first months of his posting.

The following interview was conducted on March 20 at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv to get a perspective from Ambassador Pascual on how U.S.-Ukraine relations are currently evolving given the current political climates in the two countries.

PART I

Q: Let's start at the beginning, how did a Cuban American get to be a Ukraine specialist?

A: I was born in Cuba and came to the United States when I was 3 years old. One of the values that my parents inculcated in me from the beginning was appreciation for freedom and the importance of people having the opportunity to pursue their dreams and their destinies.

In 1992, when some friends asked me if I would be interested in working on some programs to support democracy and market reform in the former Soviet Union, the only thing I could say was yes. Ukraine is one of the countries I became particularly involved with. I still think that it is especially significant because it is a country that has perhaps the best opportunity in centuries to establish itself as a European state.

As you well know, Ukraine had consistently been denied the ability to set its own course, for centuries. It really has been an honor to have this opportunity to work here and support the efforts of the Ukrainian people to actually define themselves as a European state.

Q: What is the agenda for the upcoming visit of Ukraine's Minister of Foreign Affairs Anatolii Zlenko to Washington?

A: He will meet with Secretary of State [Colin] Powell and [National Security Advisor] Condeleeza Rice, and will have other meetings.

I think, first and foremost, one of the most important things for him to do is to be able to discuss current developments here in Ukraine. There are three very big issues that are overriding domestic developments and international developments.

One concerns the Gongadze case, the recordings that have been released that affect the president and the other political leaders here; the way in which those issues have affected questions of freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and the rule of law; and the kinds of actions that Ukraine might take to give, first, the Ukrainian people a sense of confidence that the rule of law can prevail in Ukraine and, secondly, the international community a sense of confidence that there will be adherence to the rule of law.

The second set of issues has to do with Ukraine's efforts to rebuild or re-establish a political consensus for economic reform. At the end of last year we saw that there was a significant amount of progress in Ukraine. Ukraine passed its best budget and its best economic plan ever. It was able to close Chornobyl and get back on track with the IMF [International Monetary Fund]. It was able to reach agreement with the EBRD [European Bank for Reconstruction and Development] on a path forward for major energy projects. And the reason those things were done is that the president, the prime minister, the speaker of the Parliament were able to act in unison to sustain a parliamentary majority to advance economic reform. Clearly, that has broken down right now as a result of the political instability in Ukraine, and the question is going to be: How can Ukraine get back on track with economic reform? What are Ukraine's plans to do that?

The third set of issues relates to how these questions affect Ukraine's foreign policy. One of the practical realities is that relations with the West are based on performance. And because in many ways economic reform has been stalled during this period of political instability and because there are still question marks on how Ukraine will resolve the political crisis surrounding Gongadze and the tapes, and the role of law enforcement agencies, it has been difficult for Ukraine to establish that it continues to move strongly on a course of democracy and economic reforms. That has had an impact on relations with the West, because relations with the West are generally focused on performance.

So, one of the things we will talk about is how to sustain that relationship in the current political context. Around that issue, one of the things we would continue to try to reinforce is that, even if we have disagreement, it is important to stay engaged and have close political contacts, as is evidenced by the meeting itself, as is evidenced by the fact that Mr. [Oleksander] Kuzmuk [Ukraine's minister of defense] may come to the United States in mid-April. And we have had a whole series of other engagements at very high levels.

We will also talk about the broader international situation that Ukraine finds itself in. There have been many questions that have been raised about Ukraine's relations with Russia. For our part, we think that Ukraine should maintain good relations with all of its neighbors, and we will reinforce that. We will reinforce also the very important point that it's critical that all of those relationships be maintained as transparently as possible and conducted on the basis of what supports Ukrainian sovereignty.

Q: That leads us to a several-pronged question on Ukraine-Russia relations. Does the U.S. look at the defense treaty signed in January between Russia and Ukraine and the several agreements signed between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Leonid Kuchma in Dnipropetrovsk as steps indicating the two countries are drawing closer, and could this be a result of Mr. Kuchma's current political weakness? And, in terms of the military agreement, there has been some talk about joint exercises between the West and Ukraine being planned with Moscow's input. Could you clarify how the U.S. views the situation?

A: Sure. It's important that people look at these issues very carefully, and that we be able to distinguish fact from rumor. In many cases there have been press reports put out, for example by the Russian media, which have not contained very accurate information.

Again, I want to emphasize that good relations between Ukraine and Russia are important for Ukraine. Russia will always be Ukraine's neighbor and so if Ukraine can, in fact, actually sustain good cooperative relations on a transparent basis, that is good for Ukraine.

In terms of the various agreements that have been signed, there were two sets of meetings that occurred, which have raised questions in people's minds. The first set of meetings occurred in January between Defense Minister [Igor] Sergeev and Defense Minister Kuzmuk. There were a lot of rumors about Ukraine potentially compromising itself and giving Russia veto power over Ukraine's participation in international exercises.

We have looked at this very carefully, and I personally have talked with Foreign Minister Zlenko and Defense Minister Kuzmuk and with Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council [Yevhen] Marchuk, as well as with representatives of the presidential administration. I think I can say quite definitively that many of the initial rumors were just wrong.

There was one agreement that was signed at that point, which was on the standard program of military exercises that has been conducted every year between the Ukrainian military and the Russian military. In fact, the number of exercises and activities in that program are fewer than Ukraine's program with Poland and less robust than Ukraine's program with Poland, just to put it in perspective.

There is no joint naval combat unit. There was an agreement on creating a search and rescue unit, which hasn't been formally signed yet, but there is an agreement in principle to move ahead and develop this, which is fine. If there is an emergency in the Black Sea, and Ukraine and Russia can cooperate in dealing with an emergency, that's a good thing to do.

There is work that is being developed on establishing some form of a joint harbor control unit so that there are both Ukrainians and Russians looking at the movement of ships in the harbors of Sevastopol. Again, that's fine because, in fact, in many cases in the past Ukrainians weren't aware of certain Russian ship movements and this helps to deal with those sorts of problems.

The Ukrainians themselves have said that as a result of these contacts the Russians are now going to participate in several Partnership for Peace exercises that in the past they have refused to participate in. Will the Russians get advanced notification? The answer is yes, of course, but that is all within the context of the Partnership for Peace program, where every single member of the Partnership for Peace gets advanced notification and has the opportunity to provide input into the nature of the exercise. So, from everything we have seen, I don't think there was any compromise there.

In Dnipropetrovsk the main question mark that came up in people's minds was something done that would result in joint Russian-Ukrainian cooperation in the production of ICBMs. Again, we have seen no evidence in that regard. There are two projects that have attracted attention. They could be interesting projects; we need to see how they develop further.

One is actually not in the joint production of ICBMs, but in the destruction of SS-24 missiles, where the United States has worked with Ukraine to develop a particular technology that uses water to de-mine the fuel rockets. The Russians are quite interested in the technology. The Ukrainians and the Russians signed an agreement on potentially sharing that technology.

Q: Is this within the scope of the U.S.-Ukraine agreement, specifically the transfer of technology?

A: Both sides are now talking with us about the transfer of this technology, and we are looking at it more closely to see what might be possible and whether it is something that we could support.

There is another agreement that they are developing, which concerns conversion of SS-18 rockets into commercial space launch vehicles. It basically would involve converting the third stage of a rocket from something that is used to carry warheads to something that would carry a satellite and an additional booster, which would allow the rocket to be used to put satellites into space. That is not being put into effect now, but there have been some studies done on it, and as I understand it, the project coming into effect would actually depend on whether there is the commercial demand for using these kinds of launch services for satellites.

Q: Are there any plans for either President George W. Bush or Vice-President Richard Cheney to meet with President Leonid Kuchma soon; to be more specific, can we expect any overt efforts of expression for the continuation of the strategic partnership between Kyiv and Washington that the Clinton administration pursued? Also, can we expect the re-establishment of a structure similar to the U.S.-Ukraine Binational Commission, which was better known as the Kuchma-Gore Commission?

A: I can't answer about plans that President Bush might have for future meetings. Those kinds of things always have to be commented on from out of the White House. What I can tell you is that this administration sees Ukraine as a very, very important partner, who is in a strategic position in Europe, where we have strategic long-term interests, and we have a strategic interest in staying engaged. Over the past few weeks there have been numerous meetings, both in Washington and here in Kyiv, between senior Ukrainian officials and senior U.S. officials. There have been parliamentary exchanges. Vice Prime Minister [Yurii] Yekhanurov has gone to the United States. The finance minister, two deputy ministers, and now Minister Zlenko and Minister Kuzmuk will be going. The chief of the Ukrainian General Staff was in the U.S. to study issues related to the structure of the U.S. military. The involvement has been very intense.

Here in Ukraine we just recently had a delegation from the State Department and the NSC. We talked extensively on how we would continue work that was begun previously in the binational commissions, specific issues that we want to continue to address.

There are questions that still exist about the overarching bureaucratic structures that might be created to guide our work, but what's very clear is that there are certain sectoral areas where we have a very intense agenda. We are making plans even right now to continue that work.

Q: Would you say then that the Kuchma-Gore Commission structures are gone? In other words, there has been a break point; will there be new bodies, or could there be a continuation?

A: The new administration will make its own statements out of Washington on how it wants to organize its own political structure. I can tell you that within the context of the Binational Commission the basic work was done through committee structures and working groups, and there is a strong recognition on both sides that that work was real and that there was a substantive agenda that needed to be pursued. Committee structures are, in fact, discussing right now what particular issues they need to continue to work on and they are defining what the best way is to get that work done. I would expect that in the near future we might actually begin to see some meetings that occur that effectively get both sides very actively engaged.

When Jon Purnell and Cameron Munter from the State Department and the NSC were here, we in effect had a meeting of the foreign policy committee because we used similar kinds of structures as we had in the past, and had very intensive discussions on a full range of issues that we would have normally talked about relating to Ukraine - its place in Europe, international issues, non-proliferation issues, commercial questions - a very, very active and full discussion.

PART I

CONCLUSION

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