Turning the pages back... January 14, 1998 (01/13/02)

Turning the pages back...

January 14, 1998

Four years ago The Ukrainian Weekly reported that Ukraine's lawmakers had voted 317 to 27 to ratify the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership with the Russian Federation, which established new conditions for a relationship with Ukraine's largest economic partner. The historic vote came on January 14, 1998.

Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Hennadii Udovenko presented the document to lawmakers for their approval and urged them to ratify the treaty, saying it would build a legal base for economic cooperation with Russia, which then accounted for 47 percent of Ukraine's exports.

The political treaty had been signed by Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and Russian President Boris Yeltsin on May 31, 1997, after more than five years of discussion.

Since Ukraine became independent in 1991, its leaders had worked with Russia to sign an agreement on friendship, but Russian President Boris Yeltsin had postponed his visit six times, citing the unresolved dispute over the former Soviet Black Sea Fleet and particularly the status of its main base, the Crimean port of Sevastopol, which became part of independent Ukraine.

"The treaty means the affirmation of the territorial integrity and inviolability of borders of Ukraine and Russia, and in this way all questions about territorial ownership of Sevastopol and Crimea are removed," Ukrainian Prime Minister Valerii Pustovoitenko told lawmakers before the vote.

The signing of several Black Sea Fleet agreements days before Presidents Yeltsin and Kuchma signed the big treaty had set the stage for the final document, but some Ukrainian lawmakers charged President Kuchma and his government with making a lot of concessions during talks with Russia, including allowing Russian forces to remain on Ukrainian land in Crimea.

National-patriotic factions tried to have the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership and the Black Sea Fleet agreement discussed jointly. They hoped that by linking the big treaty with the more controversial BSF pact, both would sink. But the attempt at linkage was not supported by a parliamentary majority.

"Ratification of the treaty shows the whole world that we want normal relations with Russia. This is a unique chance to make the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine loyal to the authorities," said Taras Stetskiv, lawmaker and head of the Lviv regional organization of the National Democratic Party.

With parliamentary elections scheduled for March 1998, the Verkhovna Rada and the president were seeking ways to win the votes of the Russian-speaking population, which comprises a large percentage of Ukraine's voters. The upcoming elections also forced national democrats to look for supporters in eastern Ukraine, where relations with Russia were a trump card routinely used by Communists.

The ratification of the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership with Russia was seen as only the first step in normalizing relations between the two most powerful republics of the former Soviet Union.

Source: "Verkhovna Rada ratifies treaty with Russia, setting the stage for a new relationship" by Pavlo Politiuk, The Ukrainian Weekly, January 18, 1998. Vol. LXVI, No. 3.

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