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02/13/2001 | Broker
EU Team off to Ukraine Amid Anti-Kuchma Protests
BRUSSELS, Feb 12, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) A top-level foreign policy team from the European Union on Tuesday wades into the thick of political turmoil in Ukraine where President Leonid Kuchma is under growing pressure to stand down.
The four-member team will be in Kiev just a day after summit talks between the scandal-snared Kuchma and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is eager to bolster Moscow's influence in the vast former Soviet republic.
Mass rallies on the weekend called for Kuchma's ouster over the Ukrainian president's alleged involvement in the murder of a dissident journalist.
The charred, headless body of Internet journalist Georgy Gongadze, 31, was found in November, two months after he disappeared.
His murder turned into a full-blown political crisis with the release of a tape recording that allegedly catches Kuchma ordering Gongadze's disappearance.
Kuchma has denied any involvement in the killing.
EU sources said its team -- which travels Wednesday to Moldova, then Thursday to Moscow -- intends to bring up the Gongadze affair in discussions with Ukrainian officials
The 15-nation European Union is Ukraine's biggest source of foreign aid as well as its biggest trading partner outside the former Soviet bloc, taking 22 percent of its exports.
The European Commission has approved a 585 million dollar (668.9 million euro) loan to Ukraine to help finance two nuclear power units to replace the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Ukraine shut down Chernobyl -- scene in April 1986 of history's worst civilian nuclear disaster -- last December in return for 65 million euros in pledged EU assistance.
Taking part in Tuesday's mission are Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, her Belgian colleague Louis Michel, EU foreign policy high representative Javier Solana, and EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten.
Sweden, which has called for a full investigation into the Gongadze affair, holds the rotating EU presidency through June, after which Belgium takes the agenda-setting helm.
Other issues coming up in Kiev include Europe's defense and security policy and its impact on Ukraine, and better border controls to deter illegal immigrants from using Ukraine as a springboard into western Europe.
Ukraine is bordered by four candidates for EU enlargement: Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania.
Wednesday's visit to Moldova will be the EU team's first to the landlocked former Soviet republic that has become, according to World Bank data, one of Europe's poorest nations.
In Moscow, the four members will be meeting Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov on Thursday to discuss further ways to improve EU-Russia relations.
Lindh and Patten will also stop in Kalinigrad. The EU wants to develop cooperation with the Russian Baltic enclave, which borders on Poland and another EU candidate, Lithuania.
Last month the Russian foreign ministry said it was "trying to resolve in advance, together with the European Union, the problems which could arise" in Kaliningrad in the wake of enlargement. ((c) 2001 Agence France Presse)
BRUSSELS, Feb 12, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) A top-level foreign policy team from the European Union on Tuesday wades into the thick of political turmoil in Ukraine where President Leonid Kuchma is under growing pressure to stand down.
The four-member team will be in Kiev just a day after summit talks between the scandal-snared Kuchma and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is eager to bolster Moscow's influence in the vast former Soviet republic.
Mass rallies on the weekend called for Kuchma's ouster over the Ukrainian president's alleged involvement in the murder of a dissident journalist.
The charred, headless body of Internet journalist Georgy Gongadze, 31, was found in November, two months after he disappeared.
His murder turned into a full-blown political crisis with the release of a tape recording that allegedly catches Kuchma ordering Gongadze's disappearance.
Kuchma has denied any involvement in the killing.
EU sources said its team -- which travels Wednesday to Moldova, then Thursday to Moscow -- intends to bring up the Gongadze affair in discussions with Ukrainian officials
The 15-nation European Union is Ukraine's biggest source of foreign aid as well as its biggest trading partner outside the former Soviet bloc, taking 22 percent of its exports.
The European Commission has approved a 585 million dollar (668.9 million euro) loan to Ukraine to help finance two nuclear power units to replace the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Ukraine shut down Chernobyl -- scene in April 1986 of history's worst civilian nuclear disaster -- last December in return for 65 million euros in pledged EU assistance.
Taking part in Tuesday's mission are Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, her Belgian colleague Louis Michel, EU foreign policy high representative Javier Solana, and EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten.
Sweden, which has called for a full investigation into the Gongadze affair, holds the rotating EU presidency through June, after which Belgium takes the agenda-setting helm.
Other issues coming up in Kiev include Europe's defense and security policy and its impact on Ukraine, and better border controls to deter illegal immigrants from using Ukraine as a springboard into western Europe.
Ukraine is bordered by four candidates for EU enlargement: Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania.
Wednesday's visit to Moldova will be the EU team's first to the landlocked former Soviet republic that has become, according to World Bank data, one of Europe's poorest nations.
In Moscow, the four members will be meeting Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov on Thursday to discuss further ways to improve EU-Russia relations.
Lindh and Patten will also stop in Kalinigrad. The EU wants to develop cooperation with the Russian Baltic enclave, which borders on Poland and another EU candidate, Lithuania.
Last month the Russian foreign ministry said it was "trying to resolve in advance, together with the European Union, the problems which could arise" in Kaliningrad in the wake of enlargement. ((c) 2001 Agence France Presse)