Sen. Richard Lugar declares: "I care deeply about Ukraine" (10/09/05)

Sen. Richard Lugar declares: "I care deeply about Ukraine"

Ukrainian National Information Service

WASHINGTON - Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) received resounding applause at the Ukraine's Quest for Mature Nation Statehood Roundtable VI when he declared unambiguously "I care deeply about Ukraine."

Earlier in the day, Sen. Lugar announced that the Parliamentary Development Project for Ukraine (PDP) at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University had received a $500,000 cooperative agreement from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Sen. Lugar represented President George W. Bush during the November 2004 presidential run-off election in Ukraine, where he stressed free and fair election procedures would bolster international respect for the legitimacy of the winning candidate and for Ukraine.

"I watched the first round of elections with great interest," the senator said. "I got a call from the White House that President Bush wanted to express the American position and he would write a letter and I would deliver [it] to President [Leonid] Kuchma."

"The letter essentially said in the event that the elections did not turn out well, there would be consequences that went unnamed," said Sen. Lugar.

After meeting, Sen. Lugar recounted how he bumped into a large delegation from Russia that also was waiting to meet with President Kuchma. He recalled that he recognized some of the delegates from arms reduction work completed as part of the Nunn-Lugar initiative to eliminate weapons of mass destruction. "I asked my Russian friends whether they would meet with candidate [Viktor] Yushchenko and they said 'That's not on our schedule,' " Sen. Lugar recalled.

Sen. Lugar recently returned from a trip overseas with Sen. Barrack Obama (D-Ill.) where they observed an emerging problem with conventional weapons. "The major arms control arrangement this time is in stores of conventional weapons. Some are exotic, like the Man-Pad, shoulder-launched missiles, which are highly valued by transnational terrorists," said Sen. Lugar. "We want to work with people to destroy these weapons, although they are beyond our weapons of mass destruction mandate." The Nunn-Lugar program has employed 58,000 scientists that were previously involved in weapons of mass destruction programs in the former Soviet Union.

"Despite all that I've seen in Ukraine, the thing that struck me the most about my last trip is the problem of energy independence," said Sen. Lugar. While in Kyiv over the summer, the senator met with then Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko about alternative sources of oil and gas. There is a real concern among Ukraine's leadership that Russia will use its energy monopoly to exact changes in Ukraine's foreign policy goals.

Sen. Lugar noted that, although this situation is grim, it is not unsolvable. "Together we have some serious thinking to do regarding how we can change the situation in Ukraine," he said. The Center for U.S.-Ukrainian Relations is organizing a conference this fall to begin a U.S.-Ukrainian energy dialogue, something Sen. Lugar intimated to be a necessary first step toward establishing energy independence.

Sen. Lugar also said he is committed to establishing normal trade relations between the U.S. and Ukraine through the repeal of the Jackson-Vanik sanctions.

"I applaud this conference and the organizers for providing a forum to exchange thoughts between America and Ukraine," concluded Sen. Lugar.

| Home Page |