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Yushchenko Not Going to Israel
Israeli authorities have declined Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko's request to visit Israel for Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes Remembrance Day, which will be observed this year on April 16. In recent years, the Israeli Foreign Ministry has asked Kiev several times to coordinate a time for an official visit, but the timeframe for the visit has been shifted repeated. Finally, two weeks ago, Yushchenko agreed and sent a request to the Israeli Foreign Ministry to visit during the observance.
However, according to the Israeli newspaper Maariv, it then became known that Yushchenko intended to use his visit to the Yad Vashem holocaust museum to draw parallels between the Jewish Holocaust and the Ukrainian Holodomor, the famine of 1932-1933. Officially, Kiev holds that the artificial famine was an act of genocide against Ukraine by the USSR and it is demanding international recognition of it. More than 60 countries have signed a document prepared by Ukraine confirming the genocide. Israel has not, out of a desire to maintain good relations with Russia.
After it found our about Yushchenko's plans, the Israeli Foreign Ministry sent a request to the Ukrainian Embassy in Tel Aviv that another date be chosen for Yushchenko's trip because of the overbooked schedule of Acting President Dalia Itzik. It also indicated that the Israelis had too little time to make preparations. “Holocaust Remembrance Day is so busy that it is not possible to conduct a visit,” Maariv quotes a high-place Israeli diplomat as saying. “We are waiting for the Ukrainian side to name another date so that the president of such an important country as Ukraine can be met fittingly.”
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 06, 2007
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