Kissinger and Berlin Offer Ukraine Support and Aid, Respectively
On January 20 President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine, completing his two-day routine visit to Germany, took part in the Bertelsmann Stiftung international forum called Europe without Borders and met President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi and EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana. Was the visit a success? Perhaps so. In any case, it was timely.
Following this visit, Ukraine has to its credit not only a new embassy building in Berlin but also the assurances of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, a quite influential Republican, that Ukraine is going to get strong support from the new US administration, Interfax- Ukraine reports. Dr. Kissinger promised to discuss this shortly with the George Bush the younger administration. On the one hand, this might seem to be plus for Ukraine, especially in light of the fact that both Mr. Bush himself and representatives of his administration have said several times about a tougher Washington policy toward Moscow and cutting financial aid to Russia.
On the other hand, under conditions such that the American vector of Ukrainian foreign policy is still much longer than the European one, Ukraine is pinning excessive hopes on Washington’s support, and the European Union, still maintaining a wide partnership with the United States, is preparing for a no less wide rivalry, this can be an obvious minus. Russian foreign policy seems to have taken several preventive steps well before Mr. Bush was pronounced president-elect, as a result of which Moscow now maintains extremely good relations with Berlin and rather good ones with London (however, the traditionally good Russian-French relations have cooled). The Ukraine’s problem in this context is that Western Europe continues to assess its relations with the former from the angle of its relations with Russia. This was confirmed, in particular, by a leading German expert Gerhard Simon, Deutsche Welle reports. In this case, Germany is no exception. The West increasingly often says that Ukraine’s European integration is the business of Ukraine itself and that it will only be possible after the latter carries out, at last, a series of radical transformations. In addition, Russia is a more important partner. Finally, the cassette scandal and corruption charges against top government officials cannot help but affect this country’s image abroad. The leaders of Ukraine and Germany ignore the Gongadze case: Mr. Kuchma promised German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, UNIAN reports, to make every effort to investigate the disappearance of Heorhy Gongadze. The president noted in this connection that “we resolutely reject all attempts to attach any political coloring to this affair.” Mr. Kuchma assured there is “some hope to dot all i’s in this investigation” and pointed out that the widespread speculations aim to compromise not only the president but the executive branch in general, slow reforms, sow mistrust, fear, and confrontation. What really worries the president, he says, is the unity of the extreme left and the extreme right in this situation. He promised he would do his best to ensure the freedom of expression in Ukraine.
On its part, Germany promised to help Ukraine reinforce its borders, translate EU laws into Ukrainian, and restore churches. Not much. Maybe Ukraine could expect more from such a prospective advocate as Germany, but only under condition that it also achieved more at the same time. And it may also be a positive fact that, under current conditions, Ukraine can still count on Germany’s attention.
