Kyiv is also waiting
“Mutual expectations” is perhaps the way to characterize the current state of relations between Ukraine and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Kyiv expects from the Alliance and Brussels concrete actions on the part of its Eastern European partner. These things look interconnected, especially from the Ukrainian point of view: you support us and we will take steps to fulfill our pledges. However, NATO does not see things this way. Both official and informal statements of NATO officials reflect these current trends in the Kyiv-Brussels relations.
On February 4, Edgar Buckley, NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defense Planning and Operations responded to a question about political scientists who claimed that the West had “surrendered” Ukraine to Russia. He stated that “The future of Ukraine is in its own hands.” He recalled that “Kyiv proclaimed a Euro-Atlantic course,” so the ball is now in Ukraine’s court. Buckley was on a two-day visit in Kyiv for an intermediate look at the way Ukraine had fulfilled the commitments it undertook at the NATO Prague summit last November. At that meeting, Ukraine and the Alliance signed the Ukraine-NATO Action Plan and the Work Plan for 2003. Buckley stated that “We expect Ukraine to achieve considerable progress right now.” He expects organizational plans and projects to be drawn up at the current stage. NATO has never lost interest in Ukraine, nor is there any essential diminution of this interest now. Some priorities may have been revised and some confidence may have been shaken following US allegations that Ukraine breached UN Security Council sanctions on Iraq. In particular, asked if the Kolchuga scandal was over, Mr. Buckley noted that, as far as he saw it those “discussions are going on.” He continued, “It is important that relations between Ukraine and the partners be based on trust. NATO is prepared to continue such relations.”
Yet, the relative cooling of Ukraine-NATO contacts should not be exclusively attributed to the Kolchuga accusations. This scandal indeed seems to have abated for an indefinite time. Yet, the two sides have not changed their minds. But Brussels is now addressing a problem far more acute than even the forthcoming NATO enlargement. The Alliance is racking its brains over what to do about Iraq. The organization’s ranks are deeply split over participation in the anti-Iraq coalition. Of the nineteen members, four (France, Germany, Luxembourg, and Belgium) have been obstructing the decision to offer military aid to Turkey in case of a war against Iraq. Last week, NATO Secretary General George Robertson had to postpone a visit to Bulgaria so that nothing distracted his attention from the Baghdad issue.
Bulgaria was one of the nations recently invited to join the Alliance. Therefore, a two-day visit of Mr. Buckley, Robertson’s military planning assistant to Kyiv at this time is in itself a good sign, although this can be interpreted in different ways. The same also applies to NATO’s likely dissatisfaction with the absence of Ukraine’s real steps towards Euro-Atlantic integration. However, Buckley himself avoided categorical judgments, noting that it is too early to sum up any results because little time has passed since the Prague summit.
It will be equally difficult for the Ukrainian citizen, too, to follow the course of Ukraine’s integration. The Ukrainian leadership has not yet made public the Work Plan for the current year, promising to do so in the near future.
The latest polls suggest that Ukrainian public confidence in NATO has been greatly shaken in the past six months. Sociologists say one of the causes of this mistrust is inadequate media coverage of the cooperation between Kyiv and Brussels. Apparently, experts forget that the mass media can only cover the things they know about.
