Senior Fellow and Managing Director of the Center on Transatlantic Relations at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, diplomat Kurt Volker has been involved in European politics and security in five administrations over the past 23 years. He is also a Senior Advisor at the Atlantic Council of the United States and a member of its Strategic Advisory Group. During the Bratislava Security Forum, held recently in the capital of Slovakia, Mr. Volker told The Day about how the US see the role of Ukraine as the NATO’s partner before the Chicago Summit of the Alliance, and therefore the role of Washington in Ukraine’s rapprochement with the EU. He also expressed his opinion on the Reset Policy between the US and Russia.
Recently, five EU foreign ministers jointly wrote an open letter titled “Ukraine’s Slide.” Kostiantyn Hryshchenko, foreign Minister of Ukraine published his answer to this letter in The New York Times. What do you think of his reply?
“It is the right rhetoric, but it is not the words, it is the deeds. And I think the deeds in Ukraine do not correspond to the words of the letter. Yes, I am prepared to believe that there is significant corruption in Ukraine with Tymoshenko and the others, but I believe she is being singled out for prosecution for political reasons. I think that yes, there are election reforms that are being put in place in Ukraine, but I do not think they are making a more level playing field, I think they are making it harder for people to compete. I think that yes, gas deals under Tymoshenko were bad and the deals under current regime are also bad. I do not see this bringing Ukraine closer to European Atlantic institutions.”
What should be done from the United States’ point of view, considering that now Russia is pressuring Ukraine to join the customs union?
“Here is the most important point: if Ukraine cares about its own sovereignty and its own independence, it needs to establish that as a part of a European framework. Because Russia does not care about Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence, it wants to dominate in Ukraine. In order to preserve Ukraine’s future, you have to establish strong institutions and then work within European family, where every country is an independent, individual, sovereign country. Otherwise it is going to be back to Russian domination.”
But there is a chapter about strategic relations between the United States and Ukraine. Is there any way the US could help Ukraine strengthen its independence?
“We do have this strategic framework agreement with Ukraine, we do meet periodically, I do think that the rhetoric has been softened, probably in connection with reset policy, because we do not want to upset Russia and cause a problem. But my own view, and I am not a part of the government, is we can do both. We can try to work together with Russia, but at the same time we can give Russia a very clear message that we believe in Ukraine’s independence.”
There have been a lot of articles in the media saying that the reset policy is not working. What do you think about that?
“I have very good friends in the administration, and they would tell you how the reset policy produced good results. My own perspective is that those are not the result of the reset policy, they were going to happen anyway. Actually, we are getting less results. For example, Iran sanctions. We had three unanimous Security Council resolutions on Iran Sanctions under the Bush administration. We had one UN Security Council resolution in the Obama administration. Sanctions have been gradually brought up to a point, and then Russia pulls the rug out from under those sanctions – that is not strategic help. Syria is another example where Russia is blocking even basic comments about the need for Assad to go and give credibility to the opposition, this is extremely unhelpful. They are also very unhelpful with the respect of Libya. Even though we got a Security Council resolution, we ended up watering it down so much that it was not meaningful. So, I do not think that Russia has actually done much as a result of the reset policy. And we have seen Russia continue to roll back democracy and democratic standards in Russia while this policy has been going on.”
Coming back to Obama, do you think that this remark with the microphone turned on would help him to be re-elected and would it help him indeed close a deal with Russia on anti-missile defense system?
“Not really. I think that not too many voters are going to care one way or the other if we have a missile defense agreement with Russia. They are going to care about the economy, jobs, direction of our country domestically. Missile defense is not high on the list. The Republicans would argue that if we are agreeing with Russia on missile defense, the questions are: what are the terms? Are we giving up our independent right to missile defense? Or is Russia coming around to be more cooperative? And chances are, knowing Russia’s policy, we are not going to agree with Russia on missile defense, unless we are to give up some of the independence of our own system, which I do not believe the administration will do. So, I do not see any agreement out of the all thing, and I do not think it matters.”
What are Romney’s chances to win the elections?
“In our political system elections are always very close. There has never been more than about 52 to 47 percent difference. Big blocks of states are considered to be safe for the Republicans and the Democrats, so they are competing in a small number of swing states. So, it is going to be close, no matter what. It is always hard to beat an encumbent president, and the economy seems to be improving slowly. I think that Romney has not yet consolidated strong support among the Republican voters, so I would say that at the moment you would have to argue that it looks to favor President Obama. But the race will tighten as it gets closer to November.”
What are the key elements that define that Obama may lose?
“There are some key issues: jobs, if unemployment is going down. But even more than the ratio of the unemployment, it is job creation, that is one thing that is weak. Gasoline prices, it is very expensive for people to pay this higher price for gasoline. Food prices have also gone up. When we calculate inflation, we rule out food and fuel, so it is artificially low right now, it is actually a higher rate of inflation. Those are probably the most important issues, and then there are the unexpected issues: what if there is war with Iran? What if the euro collapses? What if the US economy goes back into recession? What if there is a terrorist attack in Los Angeles? Any of these things could happen that would have a major impact on the election that we cannot predict now.”
And considering the NATO summit, some are concerned that this summit would be known as an enlargement summit. What is your opinion on this?
“On the one hand, I would not expect any new invitations at Chicago, so I am not arguing that we should be inviting countries to join NATO now. But what has happened, is the idea of enlargement, the idea of a Europe that is whole and free and a piece that includes everybody, is no longer under discussion. It is not part of the diplomatic dialogue, it is not vigorously on the table. Moreover, the one issue where we have an opportunity to push the idea of Europe holding free, Macedonia, we are not doing. Macedonia was blocked in the Bucharest Summit in 2008 because of the name issue. The Greeks had a policy of erga omnes – one name for everything. Last year the International Court of Justice ruled that this was illegal and said that Greece had agreed in 1995 to use the name ‘Fyrom’ and allow Macedonia to take part in international organizations while the name issue remains unresolved. And there is no reason now with this Court of Justice decision why the US or Europe or NATO should not be pushing to have Macedonia admitted on that basis.”
What is the role of Ukraine as a partner at the NATO summit?
“There is a couple of things. One of them, Ukraine has been consistently very strong on non-proliferation issues. People respect and value that. Second is, Ukraine has been a contributor to the operations that we have been engaged in, particularly in Afghanistan. And I know from my own experience that Ukraine has been particularly important in providing helicopter transit. That has been an important contribution. So, there are a lot of areas where we can work together. At the same time, there are other areas, so we need to keep open a lot of channels and connections with all of Ukraine’s political parties, with civil society, with media and journalists, so that it does not collapse into a Yanukovych government-to-government relationship, so we keep it much broader.”
