Ukrainian President Vows to Continue Push for EU, NATO Entry

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said he is determined to bring the former Soviet republic into the European Union and NATO, widening his split with the prime minister.

Yushchenko, in an interview from his office in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, said he stands by promises to move the eastern European nation closer to western institutions during his 2004 campaign for the presidency against Viktor Yanukovych, who became premier in August after his party won March elections.

The aims of the Orange Revolution two years ago have been stymied as the two leaders battle over the direction for Ukraine, sandwiched between Russia and the EU. The political stalemate comes as Yanukovych, who was supported by Russia in his 2004 failed bid for the presidency, fired cabinet members loyal to Yushchenko last week and on Sept. 14 suspended efforts begun by the president to join NATO, citing low popular support.

"Our strategic aim is membership,'' Yushchenko countered in yesterday's interview. "People don't support the idea because they know nothing about NATO and its goals. People still have in mind the terrible myths of 1950s,'' when NATO was created as a defensive cordon against the Soviet Union.

After Yanukovych, 56, lost the presidency to Yushchenko in the flawed election that sparked the Orange Revolution, he won the premiership in March.

Initial Cooperation

When he took office he gave some cabinet posts to Yushchenko and vowed to follow the president's foreign policy. Since then he has used his ability to scale back some of Yushchenko's drive to the west, creating fresh tension between the country's two most powerful politicians.

On Dec. 1, he persuaded parliament to fire Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk and Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko, both allies of Yushchenko. Tarasyuk backed fast-track membership in NATO. Yushchenko fired back by appointing Tarasyuk as acting minister, pending an appeal of his dismissal.

Yushchenko said he will forge ahead with a publicity campaign to generate support for NATO and EU membership in an attempt to bridge the pro-West and pro-Russian sectors of society. He would favor NATO membership during his presidency, which ends in 2009.

"We will start a special program aimed to inform society about what NATO is, its history and activities next year,'' he said in the interview. "Ukraine is a part of Europe. We have a lot of common interests and values. Thus, we must have a common system of protection.''

Poisoning Case

Yushchenko also said that his dioxin poisoning during the presidential campaign was an assassination attempt orchestrated by ``people who were dissatisfied with such a perspective for Ukraine.''

The poisoning, which disfigured Yushchenko's face and could have been fatal, may have been carried out at a Sept. 5, 2004, dinner with Volodymyr Satsyuk, then the deputy head of the Security Service of Ukraine, a remnant of the former Soviet KGB.

The Nov. 23 poisoning death of Aleksandr Litvinenko, a former officer in Russia's FSB state security agency, was reminiscent of the attempt on Yushchenko's life.

The two men are also clashing over whether the country belongs in the EU. Yanukovych said on Nov. 30 during an unexpected visit to Moscow before heading to the U.S. that Ukraine must participate in the Common Economic Space, organized by Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Ukraine in 2003.

Ukraine later dropped out because some points in the agreement, including the formation of a single supervisory board, contradicted national laws. Yushchenko said the EU is the logical institution for Ukraine's future.

EU Priority

"Our top priority is to enter the European Union,'' said Yushchenko. "For this reason we must to adapt laws to European ones to help domestic producers. We may expand in eastern markets, including Russia and Kazakhstan, but without breaking European market rules.''

Yushchenko pledged Ukraine will start EU talks on setting up a free-trade agreement, a first step to membership, within three months.

On next year's draft budget, Yushchenko said he is not satisfied because the inflation forecast is ``too optimistic'' and social policies are ``not strong.'' The forecast is for the inflation rate to fall to 7.5 percent in 2007 from 11 percent in October.

"It will be very difficult to achieve,'' he said.

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Ukrainian President Vows to Continue Push for EU, NATO Entry

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