REGION-WIDE CONSEQUENCES.

At their joint news conference, Kwasniewski and Kuchma also announced that they would meet with the presidents of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in Tallinn on May 27 for consultations on economic and security issues in the region between the Baltic and Black seas. Kwasniewski remarked that Poland and Ukraine are determined to pursue a "joint regional policy" and "form an influential political force in the region and in Europe" in the interest of general stability. Both presidents came out against isolating Belarus, "whose sovereign existence is important to democratic Europe." They noted that the upcoming signing of the NATO-Ukraine special partnership agreement and Poland’s support for that pact demonstrate that NATO’s enlargement does not create new lines of division in Eastern Europe. Kwasniewski described NATO as the guarantor of a new system of European security and Ukraine as an important component of that system. (UNIAN, Interfax-Ukraine, May 21)

Influential Brother of Armenian President Dies.