Bush Lends US Support in Visit

Staff and wire reports – To demonstrate full US support for extending Ukraine a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP), US President George W. Bush paid his first official visit to Ukraine on April 1 and challenged NATO leaders to resist pressure from the Russian Federation.

“As every nation in the world told me, Russia will not have a veto over what happens in Bucharest, and I take their word for it,” Bush told a morning Kyiv press conference. “And that’s the right policy to have.”

Bush visited Ukraine just as the French and German governments declared they would not support extending Ukraine and Georgia MAPs at the April 2 to 4 Bucharest summit because they view the nations as unstable and their institutions not yet meeting Euro-Atlantic standards.

Critics allege the French and Germans are buckling to economic and political pressure from Russia, firmly opposed to Ukrainian and Georgian MAPs, though the Italian, Norwegian and Spanish governments also voiced resistance.

French leaders didn’t hide the Russian influence in its decision-making, even stating Moscow should be consulted. “France will not give its green light to the entry of Ukraine and Georgia,” said French Prime Minister Francois Fillon. “We think this is not the correct response to the balance of power in Europe, and between Europe and Russia.”

Meanwhile, The Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland reported this week that German Chancellor Angela Merkel assured Russian President Vladimir Putin during her early March visit to Russia that she will block the US drive for a Ukrainian MAP.

Europe is highly dependent on Russian natural gas imports, receiving a quarter of its supply from Gazprom. Many analysts believe Russia is increasingly using its energy might as a political lever against its neighbors.

The summit could mark the first time that a non-member is able to influence the alliance’s voting, said Vladimir Socor, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington.

In his morning press conference with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, Bush said a Ukrainian MAP would advance security in the region and throughout the world, but Russian leaders were quick to disagree.

Ukraine’s accession would cause a “deep crisis” in its relations with Moscow and would badly hurt Western relations with Russia, said Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin.

The US president’s visit stirred the political waters in Moscow, which claims NATO is encroaching on its sphere of influence through its eastward expansion, which already includes the former Soviet states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania that were accepted in 2004.

Earlier this year, Putin said Russia would point its missiles at Ukraine if it became a NATO member.

Bush, who will meet with Putin on April 6, denied at the press conference claims the US might soften its push to get Ukraine and Georgia into NATO if Russia backs off its opposition to a missiles defense shield in Eastern Europe, basing missiles in Poland and a radar tracking station in the Czech Republic.

“There’s no trade-offs,” he said. “Period.”

Russian members of parliament (MP) said they would re-consider the bilateral Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership Agreement their country and Ukraine ratified in 1999. Ukraine entering a MAP would violate the agreement’s clause that forbids joining any international organizations that damages the interests of the other partner, said Konstantin Zatulin, a Russian MP.

“Ukraine’s NATO aspiration is a direct violation of the agreement and doesn’t conform with the spirit and the letter of this document,” he said.

In promoting MAP to the Ukrainian people, their pro-Western leaders stressed the program is not NATO membership. MAP would require Ukraine to upgrade its military and strengthen democratic institutions before gaining admission.

Meanwhile at the summit, NATO is poised to offer full membership to Croatia, Albania and maybe Macedonia.

Extending Ukraine a MAP has divided NATO, with its nine East European members, often referred to as “New Europe,” siding with the US.

Yushchenko will arrive at the summit on April 3, and attend the Ukraine-NATO Commission meeting on April 4, which will discuss and vote on extending Ukraine the MAP.

“For the last 80 years, Ukraine has declared its independence six times, and five times it failed,” Yushchenko said at Bush’s side in Kyiv.

NATO membership for Ukraine should not be viewed as a threat to Moscow, he added.

“This is not a policy against somebody,” the Ukrainian president said. “We are taking care of our national interest.”

A unanimous vote excluding abstentions is necessary, and Bush and Yushchenko will invest their time leading up to the commission meeting negotiating with French and German leaders.

“I wouldn’t prejudge the outcome just yet,” Bush said.

Spending nearly a full day in Kyiv, Bush discussed MAP prospects with Yushchenko, energy concerns with Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and Euro-Atlantic integration with opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych, who represents the majority of Ukrainians in opposing the MAP, news reports said.

Yanukovych repeated to Bush the Party of the Regions of Ukraine’s policy – it supports EU-integration, but it favors NATO integration only after a nationwide referendum, news reports said.

Television reports described security as unprecedented for the Ukrainian capital, with 4,000 police officers employed to secure roads and the city center for the visit.

Much of downtown Kyiv was shut down on April 1, though a few thousand anti-NATO demonstrators took to Independence Square to wave Communist-era flags and banners in protest of the US president’s visit.

They were forbidden to approach the five-star Hyatt Regency hotel on Kyiv’s ancient Volodymyrskyi Passage where the Bushes spent the night. Access to the US Embassy of Ukraine, where they staged a demonstration on March 31, was also blocked on April 1.

The US president’s visit wasn’t all about business, visiting a local high school in the afternoon. He was accompanied by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who chatted with the high school students and helped them brush up on their English.

Meanwhile, First Lady of Ukraine Kateryna Yushchenko, a native of Chicago, accompanied US First Lady Laura Bush to the National Taras Shevchenko Museum on Shevchenko Boulevard in Kyiv. Both presidential couples also visited the Holodomor Famine-Genocide Memorial at St. Michael’s Square, placing wreaths.

Barely staying 24 hours, the visit was Bush’s first to Ukraine in his eight-year presidency, dominated by the Iraq War. His predecessor, Bill Clinton, visited Ukraine three times during his presidency.

Bush’s father visited Ukraine amid the collapse of the USSR delivering his August 1991 Chicken Kiev speech, which warned of “suicidal nationalism.” Weeks later Ukraine’s parliament declared independence, and citizens upheld this move overwhelmingly in a referendum later that year.

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