Putin, Yushchenko meet, upbeat
MOSCOW – Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin held wide-ranging talks in Kiev on Saturday as the Kremlin leader made his first visit to the Ukrainian capital since a pro-Western government came to power in January.
Appearing at a joint news conference, the leaders played down strains in the two countries’ relationship triggered by Ukraine’s recent political crisis. They pledged to build stronger economic ties and settle lingering boundary disputes left from the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.
“We will never consider Ukraine’s European choice as an alternative to cooperation with the Russian Federation,” Yushchenko said. “Russia is our eternal neighbor, whom Ukraine wants to see as a friend and strategic partner.”
“Today during talks with the president, the prime minister and the speaker of Parliament, we did not get the feeling that there are some problems in our relations,” Putin said. “They simply do not exist. There are some questions which we need to work on together, but this is a normal course of cooperation. I am satisfied with today’s meetings.”
Yushchenko said the issues discussed included demarcation of the Ukrainian-Russian border; the situation of the Russian navy’s Black Sea Fleet, based in Ukraine; the desire of both countries to join the World Trade Organization; and Moldova’s Trans-Dniester region, a territory adjacent to Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed separatists.
“I am satisfied with the openness, the spirit and pragmatism of our talks,” Yushchenko said.
During his one-day visit, Putin emphasized Moscow’s desire to implement a 2003 agreement among Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan to create a Common Economic Space aimed at free movement of goods, services, capital and labor within those four former Soviet states.
Moscow backed Yushchenko’s opponent, former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, in last year’s bitterly contested election. Putin made two visits during the campaign in what was seen as a show of support for his preferred choice. Together with Yushchenko’s pledge to move his nation toward membership in the European Union, that triggered fears in Russia that the new Ukrainian government would back away from the Common Economic Space agreement.
At Saturday’s news conference, however, Yushchenko endorsed moving forward with the plan, placing particular stress on creating a free trade zone, which he said could help Ukraine reduce its growing trade deficit with Moscow.