MILLENNIUM SUMMIT BRINGS UKRAINIANS GOOD NEWS

There were a host of first-time things at the Millennium Summit. For the first time, a delegation turned back halfway (North Korea). For the first time in the five years Fidel Castro visited the United States. For the first time three potential candidates for permanent membership in the UN Security Council were named: Germany, Japan, and, possibly, Brazil. Meanwhile, Ukraine also had its share of news. Leonid Kuchma said for the first time that GUUAM (the unofficial association of Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Moldova) is mature enough to become a full-fledged formal alliance. Prime Minister of Slovakia Mikulas Dzurinda stated for the first time that his country would never take steps detrimental to Ukraine’s interests (this is especially interesting after reports that Slovakia accepts the Russian idea to lay a gas pipeline bypassing Ukraine). Mr. Kuchma perhaps for the first time during his visits to international forums did not meet his Russian counterpart but instead spoke to Iraqi Vice Premier Tariq Aziz and stated for the first time that Ukraine was ready to open its diplomatic office in Baghdad. Ukraine organized for the first time a summit of UN Security Council member states. And, finally, perhaps also for the first time, Belarus came into the international focus: its delegation left the summit right on the second day. Rumor has it this happened because Aliaksandr Lukashenka was hurt that Bill Clinton himself had allegedly struck his name off the list of those invited to the big party. In reality, as Belarusian sources reported, their delegation had simply completed its job. Mr. Lukashenka stuck to his guns at the summit, saying that nobody should instruct him about how to live and with whom to make friends.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Borys Tarasiuk, thus commented to Interfax- Ukraine on President Kuchma’s failure to meet President Putin: a meeting like this was never planned. Nonetheless, Mr. Kuchma met Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.

It has become a tradition that the GUUAM countries hold all their summits, at which they made some more or less serious statements, far from the former USSR. It is the same now. The Russian media ostentatiously ignored the facts that Kuchma and Putin had nothing to talk about and that GUUAM is overtly trying to get out of Moscow’s and the CIS’s shadow. Nor did the Moscow press notice one more major factor: Slovak Premier Dzurinda, speaking to President Kuchma, in fact denied earlier Interfax reports and said that Slovakia would never make a decision to Ukraine’s detriment and would coordinate its policy on this issue with Poland. As to Warsaw, it stated immediately it would not let Moscow lay a gas pipeline across its territory bypassing Ukraine. It is perhaps due to these new factors in European politics that the Russian gas delegation has not yet arrived in Kyiv for talks (malicious tongues claim the reason is that our government has nothing to offer).

The Millennium Summit’s results have thus proven to be extremely positive. Nonetheless, let us not forget there can be too wide a gap between declarations and deeds.