UKRAINE

[Ashot]

March 6, 2008, 22:58

Gas, NATO, and language policies divide Ukraine

Ukraine was about to face a political crisis. The parliament has been virtually paralysed for the last couple of weeks. Members of the opposition were protesting against plans to join NATO.

 

The leadership of Ukraine – President Yushchenko, PM Timoshenko and Parliament Chairman Yatsenyuk – sent what's been dubbed the “Letter of Three” to the NATO alliance, asking it to accept Ukraine into the membership plan.

 

The opposition, the Party of Regions and the Communists, say they had no right to do this without consulting the parliament and the people. Intent on keeping their country from joining NATO, opposition parties blocked the rostrum.

 

“The parliament will resume work but only after we find a common solution. We cannot allow our government to ignore their people. A referendum must be held on the issue first,” Viktor Yanukovich, leader of the Party of Regions, had said.

 

While the Party of Regions is promising to take people out onto the streets if no compromise is found, President Yushchenko is threatening to dissolve the parliament.

 

“We all know that this blockade has no genuine reasons. Our government will work no matter what. We don’t need another election. It’s not going to change anything,” Tymoshenko said.

 

Anti-Nato balloons and posters disrupted President Yushchenko from delivering his state of the union speech.

 

But a week before the President could fire the deputies, the opposition suddenly removed a chair used to block the speaker from taking his seat.

 

They agreed on Thursday that Ukraine will only join Nato after a state referendum.

 

The coalition however, says the alliance was only a pretence to disrupt the work of the parliament.

 

“It wasn’t really about NATO, it wasn't really about foreign policy. It was about this opposition that can’t work in this parliament and hoped to use this crisis to change the situation in the country. They lost it. We have a coalition government, that is going to work westwards,” Andriy Shevchenko from Tymoshenko’s party said.

 

The issues with gas and NATO seem to be resolved. Not for long though, say the analysts. With a presidential election in a year’s time, there will be more speculations and scandals.

 

Russia Today

[Ashot]

Russia and Ukraine settle gas row - for now

Russian gas supplies to Ukraine have been fully restored. The state-run energy giant Gazprom says the dispute over debt payments has been settled. The company cut supplies to Ukraine by half earlier this week, claiming the country had failed to pay $US600 million in arrears.

 

The quarrel between Russia and Ukraine threatened to spill over into Western Europe. Early on Wednesday Ukraine’s Naftogaz sent a telegram to Gazprom, saying that supplies to European consumers would be cut by 60 million cubic metres during the day.

 

European consumers may have nothing to do with it, yet their interests have been used as a negotiating tool. About 80 per cent of Russian gas supplies to Europe go through Ukraine, which gives Kiev leverage in negotiating the price for itself.

 

After a couple of warm and sunny days, a cold spell has once again gripped Moscow and Gazprom’s relations with its Ukrainian counterpart. And the colder it gets, the more gas is consumed and the more difficult it becomes to weather this storm without losses.

 

An unusually cold winter in Central Asia helped heat up this row. Due to a fall in exports from Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, Ukraine has been receiving a larger amount of more expensive Russian gas. But, for more than two months, it hasn’t paid the bills.

 

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko says that’s because no contracts were signed.

 

“Everybody understands that Ukraine is being forced into the most unfavourable gas supply agreement these days. But I’m sure that this time Ukraine will withstand the pressure and will produce a long-standing solution,” Timoshenko said.

 

So far, European countries have tried to distance themselves from the dispute. William Ramsay, Deputy Executive Director at the International Energy Agency, said cutting supplies is not the way to solve the row.

 

“What we are saying is there are gas contracts between European consumers and Russia, and it’s important for Russia and Ukraine to keep their commercial disputes out of the pipes of the downstream customers,” Ramsay told RT.

 

On Wednesday the two sides said they had reached a tentative agreement. Gazprom spokesman Sergey Kupriyanov said all restrictions on Ukraine have been lifted.

 

“Gas delivered from January 1 to March 1, 2008, will be fully documented and paid for by Ukraine after a scheme effective as of the beginning of this year. Transit or Russian gas to Europe through Ukraine is unaffected. Restrictions on gas deliveries to Ukrainian consumers have been lifted,” Kupriyanov said.

 

But the devil is in the detail. Precisely how much Ukraine will be paying for Russian gas will be decided by a joint task force expected in Moscow in the coming days. So, while the dispute may have been settled temporarily, it has by no means been resolved.

 

Russia Today

[Ashot]

Ukrainians protest against joining NATO

Thousands of people in Ukraine’s southern republic of Crimea are protesting against the country's plans to join NATO. The demonstrators are also demanding that Ukraine's peacekeepers are withdrawn from Kosovo.

 

The protesters say that joining the alliance will be against the people's wishes and national interest, and could also harm Ukraine's relations with Russia.

 

The rally comes two days before the visit of George Bush to the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.

 

The country's plans to join NATO will be discussed at an alliance summit in Bucharest in early April.

 

Russia Today