Just days before the visit, on March 22, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry made an official statement that Ukraine fully complied with its commitment to dispose of its stock of highly enriched uranium, which is suitable for making nuclear weapons.
At the previous summit, in April 2011, Yanukovych offered the United States to swap the nation’s stock of highly enriched uranium for low enriched uranium, used for making fuel for nuclear power plants. Ukraine has 15 nuclear reactors producing about half of the nation’s energy. He also asked for a US assistance package is the construction of a neutron source facility in Ukraine.
What used to be Ukraine’s enriched uranium has now been transferred to Russia’s special services by a high security plane. The Americans are happy that Ukraine’s initiative was followed by Mexico and Chili.
The nuclear safety summit in Seoul on March 26-27 brought to Yanukovych a series of good talks with the Chinese leader Hu Jintao. Yanukovych received an invitation to visit Beijing again. The previous visit took place on Sept. 2010.
He also held talk with the world’s leading industrial groups Hyundai Corporation and Samsung Group, followed by an announcement that Ukraine will build a new railway transport producing company together with Hyundai, while Samsung will increase the number of Ukrainian programmers it uses for creating software.
But the highlight of the summit was Yanukovych’s meeting with Barack Obama, the US president. Ukraine’s opposition have called on USA and EU to introduce sanctions against Ukraine’s leadership, which would include an absense of top level contacts.
Yet the meeting between Yanukovych and Obama lasted for about 15 minutes. They talked in person, through an American interpreter. Previously, Obama and Yanukovych met in April of 2010 in Washington, and at the General Assembly of the United Nations summit last September.
Yanukovych told the press that he and Obama talked “about the issues of the nuclear summit and continuation of the policy of nuclear safety that we started, because Obama is well informed about the issue.”
Immediately after the meeting, the White House released two documents about it. The first one detailed out that “the first shipment to remove 56 kilograms of spent HEU [highly enriched uranium] fuel from the Kiev Institute of Nuclear Research (KINR) took place in May 2010. This was followed by three shipments – all in late December 2010 – to remove 16 kilograms of fresh HEU from the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology, 25 kilograms of fresh HEU from Sevastopol University, and 10 kilograms of fresh HEU from the Kiev Institute of Nuclear Research.”
The statement also said that “shipments like these recently completed from Ukraine result in permanent threat reduction because they eliminate weapons-usable nuclear material at civilian sites,” and that “financial support to help implement the removal operations with Ukraine was provided by the United Kingdom as part of a cost-sharing approach.”
The second document released by the White House detailed out that “the president underscored the importance of demonstrating the vitality of Ukrainian democracy by ensuring free, fair, and transparent parliamentary elections in October. The president also raised U.S. concerns about selective prosecutions of the political opposition.”
It also underscored that Obama expressed his gratitude for the full shipment of highly enriched uranium out of Ukraine.
Clearly, the presidents had two subjects of conversation, so the talks about a conflict of interpretation of a single conversation that arouse in Ukraine, have no merit.
Anriy Honcharuk, chief of the main department for international relations at the President’s Administration, also said on March 28 that “for Ukraine it’s exceptionally important to conduct the next election to the Verkhovna Rada to the highest democratic standards,” and that Ukraine “invited to the election many international observers, including the ones from USA, in a hope for a successful future cooperation.”
It is clear that the attempts of Yanukovych’s political opponents to isolate him from contacts with the highest leadership of USA, and present him as a “dictator,” have failed.
Facing his own election, Obama could not have ignored the hot topics raised by Yanukovych’s opponents. On the other hand, Obama has no reason not to trust Yanukovych, who has clearly shown he is capable with fulfilling his commitments, like in the case with enriched uranium.
Viacheslav Pikhovshek is a former news editor at 1+1 channel and a former speechwriter for ex-President Leonid Kuchma.
