Ambassador Taylor's Podcast for February
Dobroho Dnya. I'm very pleased to be back talking with you again this month. I've been very eager to get back and have this conversation. It's been a very busy several months and I'm glad to tell you about it.
The first one that I'd like to talk about is a big event in Ukraine's history, and that is the entrance into the World Trade Organization. On February 5, the General Council of the World Trade Organization in Geneva voted unanimously to invite Ukraine to join the WTO. This is the culmination of nearly 15 years of work by many governments in Ukraine. This is the result of difficult negotiations, long discussions, both in Kyiv and in Geneva and in many capitals around the world. This achievement that will allow Ukraine to enter a rules-based organization that will promote trade is going to be very good for Ukraine. It will be good for the international community. It will show that Ukraine is moving into the world economic realm on a rules basis. This is a very good thing for Ukrainians and for the rest of the world, and Ukraine deserves the congratulations it has been getting from all of the members of the World Trade Organization. This is a very good thing.
Now it's time for the Verkhovna Rada to take the last step, to approve the final articles of accession. This can be done very quickly. It certainly has to be done over the next several months, but it can be done even more quickly than that. It is the right next step. The world sends its congratulations to Ukraine.
The second thing that I will mention is another international organization, but this one we're talking about only the beginning of the process, and this, of course, is NATO. The President, and the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the Rada have sent a letter to the head of the NATO organization in Brussels, Belgium asking to start a Membership Action Plan.
Now, a lot of people think that a Membership Action Plan means that Ukraine has decided to join NATO. That's just not true. As Ukrainians know, this is a controversial issue. This is an issue that is not yet decided. The letter that the President, the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the Rada sent does not ask to join NATO, it asks to start a dialogue, it asks to start a process that will probably take many years. It will undoubtedly take many years. And there are no guarantees on either side. There are no guarantees on the Ukrainian side that this process will end in membership, and frankly there are no guarantees from the NATO side that this process will end in membership.
What it is, is a discussion. This begins a discussion in the most important case among Ukrainians. Ukrainians have a lot of questions about NATO, and these are legitimate questions. These are questions that they should be asking. NATO is a serious organization. NATO members have responsibilities, and NATO members have benefits, benefits of collective security, of dealing with common problems. These benefits are clear to the members who have joined recently, the Slovaks and the Bulgarians and the Poles and the Lithuanians, the Estonians, the Latvians. All of these members of NATO have gone through this same decision that Ukraine faces, and they've had many years of discussion about this, and Ukraine needs to do that, too. Ukraine needs to ask itself the question, does it want to take on the responsibilities and get the benefits of joining NATO or not? In the end, the people of Ukraine will decide. This may be through the Rada, but many people think that it will be through a referendum. So, the people of Ukraine, one way or the other, will have a decision, will have their say as to whether or not actual membership is in their future.
Information is available on this. The United States is not pushing Ukraine one way or the other. The United States thinks this is a decision for Ukrainians to make. We are very pleased to offer information and answer questions, but again, some of your neighbors, like the Slovaks, can answer the question better than we because they've gone through this issue. So, this debate will be an important one, and I think it will be a productive one, and in the end Ukrainians will decide.
In this regard, there have been several visitors here over the past month: a senator, a long-time friend of Ukraine, Senator Richard Lugar, who has been here many many times since independence. He was here for the Orange Revolution. He has been here for the destruction of weapons, and the increase of security that that has brought to Ukraine. He's been here on political occasions and on technical occasions. And he was here. He had good conversations with the senior officials here in Kyiv, and had a good discussion of the NATO issue as well as the WTO issue - a very good visit.
Similarly, Congressman Wexler was just here. Now he's a Democrat, Senator Lugar is a Republican. Congressman Wexler is in the House of Representatives. He is the Chairman of the Europe Subcommittee in the House of Representatives. He was here having similar conversations about similar topics with a similar set of senior government officials. That indicates that both the Republicans and the Democrats are interested in and supportive of and very eager to visit Ukraine. I think this is a good thing.
We also had a visit here from Assistant Secretary of State Dan Fried who was here to talk to senior government officials. He saw President Yushchenko in Davos. He saw the Prime Minister. He saw the Speaker of the Rada. He saw the head of the opposition. So he has got a good feel as well for the politics and the issues facing Ukrainians.
Speaking of politics, the last thing that I'd just like to mention is the primary campaign for the presidential election in the United States. This is the process. This is a kind of complicated, involved, and long process that we Americans go through to choose who the nominees for the Republican Party and the Democratic Party will be for the presidential race and presidential election that takes place this coming November.
This is one of the most lively, and competitive and open campaigns and primary season in many many years, because there's no incumbent. There's no president, there's no vice president who is running for the next president. This is wide open on both the Republican side and on the Democratic side. On the Republican side and on the Democratic side, they are down to two very serious candidates on both sides - two on the Republican, two on the Democratic side, and they have provided great theater, and great interest and great excitement in the United States. I've had many Ukrainians ask me questions about this, so I know that there's interest on the part of Ukraine in the outcome of both these primaries as well as the election in November.
The one thing that is very clear to me, is that no matter who is in the White House next January, no matter if it's a Republican or a Democrat, the support of the U.S. Government, and the support of that president, whichever president it is, for Ukraine will be as strong or stronger than it is now. I have talked to Republican staffs and Democratic staffs. I have talked to the candidates' staffs and people who are advising them, and I can tell you that support for Ukraine's independence and sovereignty and integration into Europe is very strong in both parties. So I am very pleased to assure Ukrainians that the next president will also be a very strong supporter of Ukraine.
With that, I wish you a good month, and I look forward to talking to you again.