NEWSBRIEFS (06/29/03)

NEWSBRIEFS

Ukrainian, Polish presidents meet

ODESA - Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and his Polish counterpart, Aleksander Kwasniewski, attended the opening of a Polish Consulate in the Black Sea port of Odesa on June 24, Ukrainian news agencies reported. The two presidents took part in a Ukrainian-Polish business forum in Odesa later the same day. (RFE/RL Newsline)

New deputy joins Verkhovna Rada

KYIV - The Central Electoral Commission on June 24 registered Mykola Kulchynskyi as a lawmaker of the Verkhovna Rada, UNIAN reported. Mr. Kulchynskyi ran in the 2002 parliamentary elections on the Our Ukraine party list. He replaces Volodymyr Scherban, whose mandate was terminated by the Parliament last week in connection with his appointment to the post of chairman of Sumy Oblast. Mr. Scherban also was elected on the Our Ukraine party list but abandoned that parliamentary caucus in July 2002 for the pro-presidential People's Choice group. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Our Ukraine against "reverse" pipeline

KYIV - Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine said in a statement on June 24 that the use of the Odesa-Brody oil pipeline to pump Russian oil from Brody to Odesa would run counter to Ukraine's national interests, Interfax reported. The statement came in apparent response to recent appeals to employ the Odesa-Brody pipeline, which was built to pump Caspian oil to Europe, in a "reverse mode." Our Ukraine called on President Leonid Kuchma to take a clear stand on using the pipeline exclusively in accordance with its original design. Meanwhile, Mr. Kuchma said the same day that Ukraine will not use the Odesa-Brody pipeline in the reverse direction if the European Commission takes "specific steps" to use the oil pipeline in its planned direction. Mr. Kuchma also observed that the Odesa-Brody oil-pipeline project "perfectly characterizes the Ukrainian mentality": "First we did it, and then we asked ourselves - why have we done this?" (RFE/RL Newsline)

Minister says Serpent Island is Ukraine's

BUCHAREST - Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana said that the Black Sea's contentious Serpent Island belongs to Ukraine, the daily Ziua reported on June 20, citing an interview Mr. Geoana recently gave to Amos News. Mr. Geoana said that "regardless of historic injustice, the 1946 Paris Peace treaty incorporated the island into the Soviet Union contrary to any norm of international justice, while political reality after 1990 confirmed this fact." He said the dispute with Ukraine is not over which country the island belongs to, but on the delimitation of the Black Sea's continental shelf. Romania regards the island as uninhabited, while Ukraine claims it has "an economic life of its own," Mr. Geoana said. Should Ukraine stick to its claim, he added, Romania might take the case to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, as stipulated in the basic treaty between the two countries in the event they fail to reach agreement on the issue. According to international law, if the court rules that the island is uninhabited, Ukraine cannot lay claim to unilateral economic exploitation of oil reserves within 200 miles from the island. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kyiv on border accord with Bucharest

KYIV - Ukraine's Foreign Affairs Minister Anatolii Zlenko said on June 18 that by signing the agreement on the Ukrainian-Romanian land border the previous day, both presidents "have unblocked the situation that existed in Ukrainian-Romanian relations," Interfax reported. "The most fundamental issue [is that] we confirmed the state-border line determined by accords of 1947 and 1961," Mr. Zlenko said. The minister added that the 2003 border agreement contains provisions that make its revision impossible. Commenting on the dispute over Serpent Island (Zmiynyi Ostrov) in the Black Sea, Mr. Zlenko said the issue was settled by a Ukrainian-Romanian treaty in 1997. "Under the treaty of 1997, the island belongs to Ukraine; the issue has been settled and closed," he said. Meanwhile, upon returning to Bucharest, Romanian President Ion Iliescu said he hopes the agreement signed with Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma will facilitate an understanding over the outstanding issue of Serpent Island, Romanian Radio reported on June 18. The same source added that Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana said the sides are as far apart on the issue as ever. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Rada re-elects ombudswoman

KYIV - The Verkhovna Rada on June 19 voted 280 to 10 to re-elect Nina Karpachova as the country's ombudswoman, Interfax reported. Karpachova failed to secure the required majority of 231 votes in a May vote. The same day, the Parliament also passed a bill that allows civilians to head the Defense Ministry and assume leading posts in Ukraine's armed forces, and introduces the post of ombudsman for servicemen. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Rada cuts VAT to 17 percent

KYIV - On June 19 the Verkhovna Rada reduced the value-added-tax (VAT) rate from the current 20 percent to 17 percent and abolished a number of VAT breaks, UNIAN reported. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Turkish president visits Ukraine

KYIV - Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer met with Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych in Kyiv on June 19, Ukrainian news agencies reported. The two sides signed four cooperation accords. Trade turnover between the two countries amounted to $1.4 billion in 2002. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Armitage meets with GUUAM envoys

WASHINGTON - Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage met with the ambassadors of Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova (the GUUAM group) at the State Department June 24 to discuss multilateral projects on regional security and economic development and the July 3-4 GUUAM Summit of Heads of State in Yalta, Ukraine. The deputy secretary underscored U.S. interest in and enthusiastically endorsed the progress made on joint U.S.-GUUAM projects in trade and transport facilitation and law enforcement cooperation. Mr. Armitage emphasized that the United States has high expectations that agreements on these programs will be approved at the GUUAM Summit of Heads of State. He and the visiting ambassadors attached great importance to the strengthened cooperative relationship between the United States and GUUAM, and agreed that the organization has the potential to foster beneficial development for the entire region. (U.S. Department of State)

Poland delays visas for eastern neighbors

WARSAW - The Polish Foreign Ministry said on June 13 that the date for the introduction of visas for citizens of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine has been shifted from July 1 to October 1, the PAP news agency reported. Foreign Ministry spokesman Boguslaw Majewski said Polish consular missions were prepared for the introduction of the visa regime for Belarus, Russia and Ukraine on July 1, as originally planned. He added, however, that the date was postponed due to the "interests of Polish citizens traveling to those states during the summer season and in consideration of postulates on the part of Poland's eastern neighbors." Earlier, Marek Siwiec, head of the presidential National Security Office, had said that Poland would most likely introduce entry visas for Ukrainians later than July 1. Mr. Siwiec said Poland was planning to join the European Union on January 1, 2004, when it set the July 1 deadline for issuing visas to Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians. He added that since EU accession was put off until May 1, 2004, the visa requirement also could be postponed. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Ukraine taps international bond market

KYIV - The Ukrainian government issued an $800 million tranche of 10-year, dollar-denominated bonds on June 4 at a yield of 7.65 percent, Interfax reported. The Financial Times noted on June 5 that a lack of regional bond issues contributed to favorable terms in comparison with the 10.4 percent yield on Ukraine's seven-year bond issue in 2000. The bonds marked Ukraine's first international issue since a debt restructuring three years ago, the paper added. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Ukraine's post office loses monopoly

KYIV - The Ukrainian Constitutional Court ruled on June 4 that the sale of postage stamps, envelopes and postcards may be conducted by other economic entities than the Ukrposhta national postal service on the basis of appropriate contracts with Ukrposhta, Interfax reported. The ruling came in response to a motion requesting an official interpretation of some provisions of a 2001 law on postal services. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Bishop named for Kolomyia-Chernivtsi

LVIV - Pope John Paul II recently approved the decision of the Synod of Bishops of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church (UGCC) to appoint the Rev. Volodymyr Viityshyn as co-adjutor bishop of the western Ukrainian Eparchy of Kolomyia and Chernivtsi. The news was reported on May 13. Father Viityshyn was born on November 9, 1959, in the village of Demydivka, Vinnytsia region, and studied in the underground seminary. He was ordained a priest in 1982 and worked in various locations of the Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk regions when the Church was in the underground. After the UGCC came out of the underground in 1989, he studied theology at the Theological and Catechetical Institute in Ivano-Frankivsk and later at the Catholic University in Lublin, Poland, where he received a licentiate in pastoral theology in 2002. From 1990 Fr. Viityshyn was pastor and dean in Tlumach and from 1997 he worked as a questor for the Kolomyia and Chernivtsi Eparchy. In addition, he served as a court vicar and member of the college of counselors. (Religious Information Service of Ukraine)

Russia disagrees with Georgia, Ukraine

MOSCOW - Col. Gen. Baluevskii said on June 17 that he cannot comprehend the reason for the refusals by Georgia and Ukraine to sign an agreement proposed by Russia to other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States to impose stricter controls on the sale of Igla and Strela shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles, Interfax reported. He noted that Azerbaijan and Moldova, which likewise declined at a meeting of senior CIS defense officials earlier this month to endorse such a multilateral ban, have subsequently hinted that they are prepared to sign bilateral agreements with Russia on strengthening control over the sale of such weapons. According to a Georgian Foreign Ministry statement of June 16, Tbilisi was ready to sign such a ban if it had been amended to include an inventory of such weapons currently deployed at Russian military bases in Georgia. (RFE/RL Newsline)

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