Ukraine's foreign minister visits D.C.; Yushchenko visit slated for early April (03/20/05)

Ukraine's foreign minister visits D.C.;
Yushchenko visit slated for early April

by Yaro Bihun
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

WASHINGTON - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and U.S. President George W. Bush are scheduled to hold talks at the White House on April 4, strengthening what both sides are now calling a U.S.-Ukrainian strategic partnership and discussing important international issues of mutual concern.

The White House announcement about the meeting was made on March 11, the second day of Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Borys Tarasyuk's talks here with senior administration officials and congressional leaders, preparing the groundwork for the presidential visit and focusing on some of the issues that will be discussed.

Calling President Yushchenko's election "a victory for democracy and a landmark event in the history of liberty," the White House statement noted that the presidents will discuss how the two countries "can intensify our work as strategic partners on a broad range of issues, including supporting the advance of freedom and democracy in eastern Europe and the broader Middle East, and cooperating on non-proliferation."

Foreign Affairs Minister Tarasyuk was the first top-level Ukrainian government official to visit Washington since the changeover in administrations in Kyiv in January. He had meetings with top U.S. administration officials - Vice-President Richard Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez - as well as with congressional leaders, foreign policy think-tanks and the press.

Describing his March 11 meeting with Secretary of State Rice as "extremely constructive and positive," Minister Tarasyuk said they discussed such issues on the bilateral agenda as granting Ukraine market economy status, getting Ukraine into the World Trade Organization and graduating Ukraine from the restrictions of the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the U.S. Trade Act of 1974.

On the previous day he discussed the Jackson-Vanik amendment, among other issues, in Congress, where he said he was assured "that this issue will be resolved very soon." Indeed, two of the lawmakers he met - Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) - introduced bills in mid-February that would get Ukraine out from under Jackson-Vanik and normalize bilateral trade relations.

While on Capitol Hill, Mr. Tarasyuk also met with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), as well as with members of the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus, including two of its co-chairpersons, Reps. Kurt Weldon (R-Pa.) and Sander Levin (D-Mich.)

During his two days in Washington the Ukrainian foreign affairs minister visited two organizations that had worked for democratic reforms in Ukraine - the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute - as well as the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He also addressed a large gathering at George Washington University.

At these gatherings and during a news conference on March 11 at the National Press Club, Minister Tarasyuk stressed Ukraine's new Western orientation.

Ukraine has abandoned what was called the "multi-vector foreign policy" of the previous administration, which spoke about NATO and European Union membership during visits to Brussels and Washington, and about "eternal strategic partnership with Russia" when visiting Moscow, he said. Now, he said, Ukraine has "very clear" foreign policy objectives: European and Euro-Atlantic integration, friendly relationships with its neighbors, and the development of a "truly strategic partnership" with the United States.

He added, however, that this strategic objective "does not contradict implementation of our interests in the relationship with Russia." As for President Yushchenko's decision to withdraw Ukrainian troops from Iraq, Mr. Tarasyuk told the gathering at George Washington University that it will be done as promised to the Ukrainian people.

However, he added, Ukraine will not do anything "that might let down the Iraqi people and our brothers in arms in Iraq"; it will do its best "to ensure that there will be no vacuum of security after the withdrawal"; and Ukraine will substitute its military with a "diversified presence" in Iraq.

Ukraine will also remain America's partner in the war against terrorism, he said, and it will support U.S. efforts against proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Foreign Affairs Minister Tarasyuk was the guest of honor at an evening reception at the Embassy of Ukraine, which included two surprise guests. One, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, attracted a lot of attention as he arrived and left a half-hour later. The other, causing less of a stir and apparently going unnoticed by most of the other guests, was Mykola Melnychenko, the officer in President Kuchma's security service who secretly recorded his conversations, which led to the president being accused of complicity in various criminal activities, including the murder of Heorhii Gongadze, the editor of the Ukrainian Internet newspaper Ukrainska Pravda.

Earlier on March 10, which happened to be the anniversary of poet Taras Shevchenko's death, Minister Tarasyuk, in the company of about 100 people from the Embassy and the diaspora, placed a wreath at the base of the Shevchenko monument in Washington.

While the details of President Yushchenko's coming visit have not yet been released, some Ukrainian American groups are campaigning to have President Yushchenko address a joint session of the U.S. Congress.

A letter calling for such a session was also sent last week to House Speaker Dennis Hastert by Helsinki Commission Co-Chairman Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.) and Ranking Member Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.). April 4, the day when President Yushchenko is scheduled to be in Washington, however, falls on a day when Congress is not in session, a complicating factor that would have to be resolved.

As for other cities he may visit, various unofficial reports have mentioned New York, Chicago and Boston as possibilities.

There have been five visits to the White House by Ukrainian presidents since Ukraine became independent - four of them, between 1994 and 1999, by Viktor Yushchenko's predecessor, Leonid Kuchma. President Leonid Kravchuk's only visit came just before he left office in 1994. Except for Mr. Kuchma's first visit in 1994, which was a "state" visit with appropriate pomp and ceremony, the rest were at the "official, working" level - as will be President Yushchenko's visit in April.

This will not be Viktor Yushchenko's first White House meeting with a U.S. president. In 2000, when he was prime minister of Ukraine, he met there with President Bill Clinton.

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