Kyiv Supplies Washington With Expert Opinion

On October 11, US ambassador to Ukraine Carlos Pascual was invited to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. The Ukrainian diplomats handed him a note containing the official expert opinion about the tapes allegedly recorded by Mykola Melnychenko in July, 2000. It is on their basis that the US State Department accused Ukraine on September 24 of complicity in selling the Kolchuha radar systems to Iraq.

According to the ministry’s press-service, conclusion No. 4223 of the Kyiv Forensic Examination Institute of the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice says the recorded conversations referred to by the US State Department “were subjected to alteration after initial recording”. The ministry says that “the results of the investigation also indicate that it is impossible to prove ‘authenticity’ of the tapes recorded in the “*.dmr” format on changeable carriers”. The research found out that the above- mentioned recordings had been made by arranging data from the original recordings. The Ukrainian diplomats expressed to Mr. Pascual their concern over the position of the US State Department, which “inflicted moral damage to the state and the President of Ukraine”.

Commenting upon the Ukrainian note to the US, head of the President’s Administration Viktor Medvedchuk said, “The accusations brought by some American officials forced the President’s Administration to request the Kyiv Forensic Examination Institute of the Ministry of Justice to carry out an examination of the audio tapes which allegedly show Ukrainian officials talking about selling the Kolchuha systems to Iraq contrary to UN sanctions. As a result of the analysis and technical research, the experts drew the conclusion that the recording had been tampered with and that it was impossible to prove technical authenticity of the tapes. This allows concluding that the American officials referring to “*.dmr” format recordings (i. e., recorded on a digital carrier) and insisting on their authenticity were misled. In an effort to remove the stigma from Ukraine’s clean reputation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs addressed a note to the US, which contains the results of the above-mentioned research and proves that the accusations against Ukraine were absolutely groundless. “We support the Ukrainian experts’ proposal to set up an international expert commission of highly-skilled specialists to completely resolve these problems.”