General Henry Obering (left), the head of the US Ballistic Missile Defense Agency, and US Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor (center) before a press conference in Kiev on March 14, 2007.
Photo: Konstantin Ilyanok
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Pentagon Heads for Kiev
// US Primes Europe for Missile Defense System
Yesterday an American delegation headed by US Ballistic Missile Defense Agency director Lieutenant General Henry Obering arrived in Kiev, where the Pentagon's representatives and the Ukrainian authorities were due to discuss plans to expand America's ballistic missile defense system into Poland and the Czech Republic. In the face of the increasing number of opponents that the idea is facing, including much of Western Europe, Washington has clearly decided to attempt to placate the naysayers by sending General Obering in to do some explaining.
The Pentagon delegation's visit to Ukraine was organized on the initiative of the American side. In Kiev, the meetings lasted from early in the morning until late in the evening and included talks with Defense Minister Vitaly Gaiduk, presidential advisor Vladimir Gorbulin, deputies from the Upper Rada (the Ukrainian parliament), and representatives from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry. On the request of the Americans, the meetings were held behind closed doors, with General Obering appearing in public only at a final press conference to discuss what brought him to Kiev and the talks that he had with Ukrainian military and government officials.
According to General Obering, the American anti-missile facilities that may soon be installed in Poland and the Czech Republic are necessary only to neutralize the threats posed by Iran and North Korea. He insisted that these facilities are not a threat to Russia and that the US has no plans to establish a similar system in Ukraine or the countries of the Caucasus. "We are talking about no more than ten interceptors,'' Obering assured journalists, adding, ''They would have no effect against the hundreds of missiles and thousands of warheads that the Russians have. …They are not even in the proper position if we were concerned about Russian missiles.''
General Obering's placatory speech was briefly interrupted by four activists from the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU), who chanted "Yankee, go home" and waved banners featuring anti-NATO and anti-American slogans before being subdued by security guards and ejected from the room. Several journalists were briefly involved in the scuffle, as was Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Deshchetsa, who managed to rip a banner from the hands of one of the protestors. In response to the incident, General Obering observed, "I am very glad to see that democracy is alive and well" in Ukraine. Meanwhile, a demonstration was taking place on the street outside the building, where about 50 PSPU activists chanted "We're not Yankees, we're Slavs, and our brothers are the Russians" and carried signs reading "No to American missile defenses in Europe," "No to pro-NATO plans in Ukraine," and "Ukraine against NATO."
The antics of the PSPU activists were unlikely to puncture the mood for Washington's emissaries, who were being handled with utmost care by Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko. Eager to make General Obering feel welcome in Kiev, President Yushchenko argued in an interview with Euronews the day before the American delegation arrived that the idea of Poland and the Czech Republic hosting elements of the US missile defense shield in is in Europe's best interest. "We are talking about the installation of components that are defensive in nature and that will serve the interests not only of Poland and the Czech Republic but of Europe as a whole," he said, adding that "the development of a collective model is always better than the development of a bipolar system of confrontation."
Mr. Yushchenko's sanguine outlook is not shared by Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, who has long criticized Washington's plans to expand the shield in Europe, but the prime minister's opposition gave the president no pause. President Yushchenko dismissed Mr. Yanukovych's fears, calling his position an incorrect signal. "My main point is this: Europeans should rest assured that not a single democratic victory of the Orange Revolution will be ceded or ruined," promised the president. Incidentally, there were some signs of rapport between Yushchenko and Yanukovych yesterday that could facilitate the hammering out of a unified position for Kiev on the issue of the missile defense system: during a meeting yesterday evening, the two Ukrainian leaders finally agreed on a candidate for foreign minister, a question on which Viktor Yanukovych has been stonewalling all progress for the past several months. This is a positive signal for the West, which has been quietly confused about whom to carry on talks with, given that Ukraine's two leaders hold diametrically-opposed opinions on foreign policy.
"The visit by the Americans is an overture. Their plan is to at least test the waters, to find out how the Ukrainian elite feels about the missile defense system and to try to make sure that it does not come out against [the system]. They need the Ukrainians to not destroy Eastern European solidarity on this question," said Vadim Karasev, the director of the Kiev Institute of Global Strategy. "Right now the Ukrainian military is not unanimously opposed to the missile shield, and that is significant," he noted.
Henry Obering has every reason to believe that his visit to Kiev yesterday was successful. Today General Obering heads for Germany, whose leadership has been increasingly critical of the American plan to put its missile shield in Eastern Europe without consulting all interested parties. Recently German Chancellor Angela Merkel maintained that Washington should take Russia's opinion on the matter into account and mentioned that she plans to bring up the subject during her visit to Warsaw on March 16-17: "I think that we will discuss it there. …We, and I will say this in Poland, prefer a solution within NATO and also an open discussion with Russia about it." During his visit to Germany, General Obering plans to hold discussions with German military officials and politicians similar to his talks with the Ukrainian authorities, and he is sure to push Ukraine's cautiously positive outlook on the shield in hopes of convincing his German colleagues that Washington's plans involving Poland and the Czech Republic will not rupture relations with Russia.
Nikolai Filchenko
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 15, 2007
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