By Viktor ZAMYATIN, The Day
An embarrassing thing happened in Ljubljana when President Kuchma suggested
that Slovenia establish visa-free exchanges with Ukraine and received a
polite no, reports Interfax Ukraine.
The other side diplomatically pointed out that the issue was problematic,
because Slovenia is an associate member of the European Union. It has been
a long time since Ukrainian diplomacy received such a painful blow, and
all because its own political leader seemed to have forgotten that only
things carefully planned and considered well in advance could be discussed
at summit meetings and expected to meet a favorable response.
Diplomacy will not tolerate improvisation. Mr. Kuchma's other statement
in Ljubljana that NATO should become a factor in European security was
also, to put it mildly, off-key after his previous declarations about the
inadmissibility of NATO actions in Yugoslavia.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry explained the visa thing quite simply:
the two countries agreed on visa procedures at the outset and their cancellation
was never discussed. Other former socialist countries renewed visa-free
agreements with Ukraine signed during Soviet times.
Slovenian President Milan Kucan stressed that his country wholeheartedly
supports Ukraine's desire to become an associate member of the EU. If and
when it does, perhaps the visa issue will be solved automatically and investment
will be discussed more seriously. But this is not a Slovenian problem,
of course.
Also not Slovenia's problem is the logic of Ukrainian diplomacy. Condemning
NATO's bombing and then saying it ought to guarantee security in Europe
after the bombing takes some doing, especially when Ukraine's relationship
with NATO does not seem to matter much. And who will want to have anything
to do with a country, whose leader has no idea what to say and what not
to?






