Signals and Responses
After the NATO Council had announced its decision to downgrade Ukraine’s representation at the November 21-22 Prague summit to the ministerial level, Kyiv took a time-out for taking further steps. “We look on this decision calmly, without undue agitation or emotions; we are carefully studying its causes and results,” Interfax-Ukraine quotes Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Anatoly Zlenko as saying. He admitted “complications and misunderstandings” in relations with the United States, which in fact prompted the NATO Council to make this decision, and expressed hope that this temporary friction would pass, for this runs counter to the wishes of most Ukrainians and Americans. In his opinion, this situation, caused by a “shortsighted and unclear policy,” will not radically change the level and principles of the Ukraine-NATO cooperation.
The NATO leadership does not hide that the “Ukrainian question” voting results were influenced by the atmosphere that emerged after the United States had opined that Ukraine might have sold Kolchuga early warning radar systems to Iraq. Minister Zlenko said, “As to the Kolchuga, there is too much empty rhetoric here. I tend to view this situation as a spin-control exercise, but there still is an obvious link between the NATO decision and the Kolchuga.” The minister noted that the decision to hold the Ukraine-NATO commission’s session at the ministerial level was made without waiting for the conclusions to be made by US and British experts who visited Ukraine.
Radio Liberty’s Ukrainian service quoted an anonymous US administration representative as saying that Washington again decided to slash aid to Ukraine well after it had previously announced a $54 cut. Radio Liberty says that, according to this anonymous source, the recorded conversation between Kuchma and Malev is ample proof and that US-Ukrainian relations are faltering due to lack of trust. The visit of US and British experts to Ukraine in search of the evidence of radar sales to Iraq yielded no convincing results, the official said. US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told a briefing last Thursday that the expert group had not yet presented a complete report and might finish its work in the next few days.
In the opinion of Oleksandr Sushko, director of the Center for Peace, Conversion, and Foreign Policy, published on the Part.org.ua site, NATO’s decision about Ukraine’s participation in the Prague summit indirectly “confirms the supposition that the conclusions the US and British experts made following the inspection in Ukraine are not very positive for this country. They are likely to claim that Ukraine failed to furnish them full information that could refute the accusations connected with the published conversation between Kuchma and Malev.” NATO undoubtedly looked forward to the preliminary results of this inspection. In his view, Ukraine will be blamed primarily for failure to supply all the relevant information, including its refusal to arrange interviews which could shed further light on this matter. “Some former officials in fact dodged meeting the experts. For example, the experts were eager to meet Orshansky and Derkach. But this did not happen, only deepening the atmosphere of mistrust.” At the same time, Mr. Sushko believes, “We cannot say that the experts’ conclusions contain some proven fact of Ukraine’s military cooperation with Iraq, and, undoubtedly, the report will not be too negative,” which is also shown by the decision still to invite Ukraine to the NATO summit, lowering the representational level and freezing the cooperation at the current level.
President Leonid Kuchma said in Simferopol on November 1, “I am going to Prague,” Interfax- Ukraine reports. He also believes the Ukraine-NATO Commission should not meet at all if it is going to discuss whether or not Ukraine sold the Kolchuga to Iraq. President Kuchma also said he does not know what goal — political or legal — the expert commission set. “If it is political,” he said, “then the conclusions will not surprise us.” In his opinion, these conclusions may sound as follows, “Ukraine failed to furnish sufficient evidence.” He wished the experts to be impartial. Verkhovna Rada Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, now visiting Greece, was quoted by Interfax-Ukraine as saying that the NATO-proposed format of the Prague summit participation does not correspond to Ukraine’s contribution to the strengthening of European security, and “it is difficult to explain” their decision from the political and international viewpoint as well as from the angle of ongoing worldwide processes. At the same time, according to Mr. Lytvyn, one should not “make a tragedy out of this because the main thing is the content, not the form.” Minister Zlenko says he “would not like the North Atlantic Council’s decision to be the subject of domestic political speculation in Ukraine.” In his view, the current situation is “undoubtedly detrimental for both Ukraine and NATO.”
However, most comments today boil down to the following: although the situation is really negative for Ukraine, we still should take part in the Prague summit at least for the sake of preserving the present-day level of the relationship. Otherwise, further development of the situation will be indeed detrimental to this country. For the point is that Ukraine has expressed a desire to come closer to and even join NATO, which definitely implies having to meet certain criteria and rules. There seem to be some problems with the latter as well as with the interpretation of and the ability to react adequately to the situation.
