The leaders of 17 countries in Central and Eastern Europe, among them President Kuchma, approved an action plan at the Warsaw conference to combat terrorism. The plan envisages tightening frontier control, monitoring even closer the banking and financial sectors to obstruct money- laundering, stepping up cooperation between the national clandestine agencies in the region. Mr. Kuchma declared at the conference that the GUUAM countries are preparing their own antiterrorist program, adding that the same issue is included in the agenda of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Group. The Warsaw conference also served as an example of using progressive communication technologies, with President George W. Bush taking part via a satellite bridge. He said that America will combat this evil [international terrorism] until it is finally annihilated, reports Interfax Ukraine. The US president stressed that Afghanistan as a terrorist training base will no longer exist and that they are not fighting Islam but hatred. Poland’s President Aleksander Kwasniewski addressed the conference, saying that they were gathered to demonstrate solidarity in combating terrorism, reports the BBC. At the same time the Western media have begun to increasingly often mention that Central and Eastern Europe are becoming extremely attractive to international terrorist organization owing to lack of adequate control. However, no documentary evidence has been produced.
As for the Ukrainian stand, President Kuchma described it as follows: Ukraine is prepared to participate in humanitarian missions in Afghanistan and will provide cargo planes. Humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, he said, must be the second stage of the operation and preparations must begin today. The possibility of using Ukrainian military cargo planes has been discussed at various forums and meetings of late. At present, it is necessary to work out a clear and uniform definition of international terrorism, Mr. Kuchma emphasized, and determine the supporting factors; without reinforcing Ukraine’s eastern frontiers no effective struggle against terrorism will be possible in the region. The transparency of the eastern borders, combined with the tightening of control over the western ones, places Ukraine in a difficult position. In Mr. Kuchma’s opinion, this turns Ukraine into a dam for illegal immigrants and refuges, and this means that the problem must be solved by concerted action. UNIAN quotes the Ukrainian president as saying that the United Nations is the only universal organization capable of actively struggling against terrorism and that Ukraine has submitted proposals concerning a UN Security Council resolution concerning this struggle and suggested a Security Council meeting at the foreign ministers’ level.
