Turning the pages back... April 4, 2004 (04/03/05)

Turning the pages back...

April 4, 2004

One year ago, on April 4, 2004, The Ukrainian Weekly's top front page story was about a visit to Kyiv by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who told Ukrainian authorities during his March 25 meetings that future relations between Ukraine and the West are dependent on how the country's presidential elections proceed.

"It's our view that the nation of Ukraine has committed herself to certain standards as she addresses European Union and North Atlantic integration and the NATO action plan," explained Mr. Armitage during a press conference. "We would be able to develop a political relationship if there were fair, free, open and democratic elections. It's a very important milestone for Ukraine, I believe."

Roman Woronowycz of our Kyiv Press Bureau reported that Mr. Armitage emphasized that he believed that a good economic and security relationship already exists between Ukraine and the U.S. He added that if Ukraine held democratic elections free of "media intimidation and opposition intimidation," relations between Washington and Kyiv could "get back to the type of relationship we envisioned when Ukraine became free more than about a dozen years ago."

Mr. Armitage's trip encompassed nearly all the priority issues in Ukraine's foreign policy towards the West, including its participation in the Iraq stabilization force; business contracts for rebuilding Iraq that Kyiv would like awarded to Ukrainian businesses; European Union and NATO membership for the country; and the Odesa-Brody oil pipeline.

During a day on which he met with top state and government officials, as well as with opposition leaders, Mr. Armitage repeatedly stressed free and fair democratic elections as the benchmark that would determine Ukraine's future integration with the West.

The deputy secretary of state, the highest ranking U.S. official to visit Ukraine since the Iraq war, said the reason that so few top level Bush administration representatives had visited Kyiv in the last few years had to do with what Washington had perceived as a questionable dedication to democratic development by Ukraine.

"We didn't have a high-level dialogue with the president, and one of the reasons was that we had some real questions about the commitment to democracy," explained Mr. Armitage.

The U.S. undersecretary of state emphasized that Ukraine's commitment would be further tested through the October 31 presidential vote. He noted that he had discussed with President Kuchma the intimidation of the Ukrainian mass media and the opposition forces by government bodies. He told journalists in his last appearance in Kyiv that he supported a limited ban on government oversight of opposition organizations, including by the State Tax Administration and the various law enforcement bodies, until after the elections.

Mr. Armitage said the opposition leaders with whom he had met - Viktor Yushchenko of the Our Ukraine Bloc and Yulia Tymoshenko of the eponymous political bloc, along with several top supporters - impressed him with their dedication and sincerity.

"My impressions are that the opposition is very tense, very dedicated, troubled," explained the U.S. official. "It wants to be sure that the international community is watching very closely to see that generally recognized European standards for elections are upheld."

Source: "Armitage to Kuchma: free and fair elections will be benchmark of U.S-Ukraine relations," by Roman Woronowycz, Kyiv Press Bureau, The Ukrainian Weekly, April 4, 2004, Vol. LXXII, No. 14.

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