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| Updated: 22-Feb-2005 | NATO Speeches |
| NATO HQ
22 Feb. 2005 |
Questions and answers at the press conference
Q: (National News Agency of Ukraine) Let me ask a question in Ukraine please. (Translator) You have declared that the withdrawal of Ukrainian Forces from Iraq is one of the priorities for the Ukrainian government, at the same time, Iraqi regulation of sedition in Iraq is the priority both for the alliance and for the EU. Can we speak about sort of a new participation of Ukraine in Iraq- operation(?) what will be the forums of this process of regulation of the sedition in Iraq? Yushchenko: We are based on the fact that presence of our troops in Iraq meets the national interests of Ukraine. In view of a number of circumstances, eight months ago, my political foras(?) expressed our position in- vis à vis our presence of our contingent in Iraq. It was based on three points: Point number one, a formation of a negative entity(?) of Ukrainian society to our military presence in Iraq. I would say it was the first thing which myself and my political supporters reacted to. Point number two, Iraq has already had the first national government which changes the behaviour of partners to a large extent because it's necessary to at least ask the national government of Iraq about their vision of the future participation of the Ukrainian military in Iraq. The third point, the Security Council has formulated a political position towards a reconciliation in Iraq and in our view these were the circumstances which made it necessary for Ukraine to review its position in this sense. So summing up I would like to say that we stand for withdrawal of Ukrainian military from Iraq. The second point is that this withdrawal will take place within the framework of consultations with our colleagues and partners. It's not going to be a one-time, one-shot action. It's going to be a lengthy process which will take into consideration the interests of all participants of this situation including the Iraqi national government. And the major point is that we do not exclude a possibility that some Ukrainian military may be used for the work related to military and technical assistance: training military personnel, training local police units or some other way using Ukrainian peacekeepers' skills and knowledge and the possibilities which the Ukrainian state has. Thank you. Q: (inaudible) Question to you Mr. Scheffer. As it is known at the Istanbul-NATO Summit, the NATO member states were ordered to develop proposals on enhancing the level of relations between Ukraine and NATO. Could you answer, why this order has not been yet fulfilled and what do you mean by enhancing the relations between Ukraine and NATO? Whether this meets the proposals of Ukraine in terms of Membership Action Plan? de Hoop Scheffer: The NATO-Ukraine relationships are two things. First of all, that NATO has, as you know, an open door policy. In other words, European democracies who fulfil the criteria for membership can enter through that open door. Now that process is performance based, I mean, as we have seen in the past, in the NATO enlargement process, that is a performance based process. So the countries should fulfil the obligations. We have a good head start with Ukraine because we have the distinctive partnership. So what was expressed around the table is, let's- of course on the basis of the priorities of the new Ukrainian administration who clearly has shown the way to go, let's work for a start on the base of the Action Plan; let's have high-level political context on the base of the Action Plan; let's see where NATO can start and assist Ukraine on the road it wants to take. But we should do that, and we are going to do that, let's say, on the basis of this horizon. And I think that the distinctive partnership offers us a lot of possibilities, a lot of possibilities indeed to have a more intense or intensive fight(?), distinctive partnership with Ukraine, between NATO and Ukraine, than we have at the moment. Thank you.
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