On Wednesday evening during the briefing at the Presidential Secretariat that followed a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council, President Viktor Yushchenko answered some questions.
ABOUT THE CRIMEA
President Yushchenko thinks that one of the reasons behind the negative processes taking place in the Crimea is the existence of “a very weak power,” an undisciplined one. “The Ukrainian government, both the central and the local one, has not seriously approached the Crimea topic. Everyone was satisfied with the little chaos that exists there, because everyone in Kyiv was feeding on this, because before a Crimean Tatar was given six hectares, the “uncles” in Kyiv got 70 hectares, but not in steppe Crimea but the southern shore of the Crimea,” he said. Earlier, the Ukrainian president’s representative in the Crimea, Hennadii Moskal, admitted that he thinks that the territory of the peninsula should not be distinguished according to the ethnic criterion. He emphasized that many Crimean Tatars who had been settled all over the Crimea, “from Dzhankoi, Leninsk, Krasnoarmiiske raions, from Kerch, want to come back to the place where their parents, grandparents, and grand-grandparents lived...It’s their constitutional right, nobody can limit them, but there’s no more land. The land has already been occupied.” Moskal pointed out that there is no law in Ukraine concerning restitution and “and who knows whether one will ever be adopted.” During this year alone, 5,792 cases of arbitrary land occupations were recorded, 60 percent of them by people who have the status of having been deported from Ukraine.
ABOUT NATO
Victor Yushchenko said there is no possibility to change the state’s foreign policy direction as far as cooperation with NATO is concerned. “I don’t see either any possibility or logic in changing the foreign policy course on this question,” he said. Yushchenko reminded his listeners that a Law “On the Fundamentals of National Security” has been passed in Ukraine, which entails membership in the EU and NATO; decisions of the NSDC and governmental resolutions concerning this question also exist. “The basis of the strategy has been defined, so let’s stop dissembling — the National Declaration has reinforced them,” the president said.
ABOUT THE PRESIDENT, THE PRIME MINISTER, AND THEIR POWERS
The president considers the prime minister’s wish to separate the powers of the state head and the government head “normal.” “I think this is a normal attempt of each government branch or institution to be strictly aware of the beginning and end of the field on which their functions expand,” Yushchenko said.
ABOUT THE SECRETARY OF THE NSDC
The secretary of the council will be appointed after the organizational work in the Presidential Secretariat is completed. “We are now completing the organizational work at the Presidential Secretariat, finishing the key appointments, and only then will we start the organizational work at the NSDC,” Yushchenko said.
