HORBULIN OVERRULES RAZUMKOV ON NATO.

Volodymyr Horbulin, Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, yesterday rebuked the Deputy Secretary Aleksandr Razumkov’s position on Ukraine’s relations with NATO. Horbulin told the press that Razumkov had “erred both in form and in substance” when speaking on that subject to the recent Kyiv symposium of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

Razumkov had told the symposium that Ukraine’s accession to NATO will not be on the agenda for at least another ten years, if then. He claimed that the accession would cost Ukraine from US$60 billion to US$125 billion, or–alternatively–force Ukraine to reduce its armed forces to one-third or one-quarter of their present strength. Razumkov also reportedly argued that Ukraine faces a dilemma between adhering to NATO or to a CIS collective security system, and that a majority of the populace favor the latter.

Horbulin criticized Razumkov for exaggerating the costs of Ukraine’s hypothetical accession to NATO, unnecessarily fanning concern among Ukraine’s military with his monetary and force reduction figures, posing a false dilemma between NATO and the Tashkent Treaty (with which Ukraine has no relation), and giving grist to the Ukrainian left in the upcoming parliamentary debate on Ukraine-NATO relations (UNIAN, February 16). Horbulin is President Leonid Kuchma’s closest confidant and, like the president, a proponent of a Western orientation in foreign policy. Razumkov, for his part, often stresses the need for not alienating Russia.–VS

BAKU SEEKS A PLACE IN THE WESTERN ALLIANCE SYSTEM.