UKRAINE/MOLDOVA/TRANSNISTRIA: EUR DAS KRAMER

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KIEV 001021

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/15/2016
TAGS: PREL PBTS MD UP OSCE
SUBJECT: UKRAINE/MOLDOVA/TRANSNISTRIA: EUR DAS KRAMER
SUPPORTS UKRAINE-MOLDOVA CUSTOMS PROTOCOL IMPLEMENTATION

Classified By: Charge d'Affaires, a.i., for reasons 1.4 (b,d).


1. (C) Summary: During March 13 meetings in Kiev, EUR DAS
David Kramer praised the Ukrainian government's decision to
implement a customs protocol to control the flow of goods
across its border with Moldova/Transnistria. Drawing on
reftel, Kramer told PM Yuri Yekhanurov, Deputy Minister of
Defense Leonid Polyakov, MFA 2nd Territorial Department
Director Anatoliy Ponomarenko, and journalism students and
media representatives at Kiev-Mohyla Academy that the customs
protocol implementation could motivate Transnistrian
authorities to engage meaningfully in the five-plus-two
Transnistria settlement process. Kramer told Ponomarenko he
had protested Russia's unhelpful stance March 10 in a meeting
with Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Ushakov and said our
Embassy would reinforce the message in Moscow. Ponomarenko
expressed concern that the Transnistrian authorities were
preparing to wait out the Ukrainians until after the March 26
Ukrainian parliamentary elections in the hope that the next
Cabinet would reverse the customs protocol implementation.
He took Kramer's point that a special five-plus-two session
should not be convened to discuss the customs protocol, since
such a meeting would unnecessarily elevate a bilateral matter
and five-plus-two delegates were not the experts needed to
consider the relevant technical issues. Separately,
opposition Party of Regions foreign policy adviser Leonid
Kozhara argued that export permits and stamps were not a
usual trade practice and Ukraine should not need to enforce
an extraordinary Moldovan requirement; Kramer said the
measure was necessary to control contraband. Embassy
released a statement on Kramer's visit expressing U.S.
support for implementation of the customs protocol. End
summary.

Prime Minister's Views
--------------


2. (C) DAS Kramer raised with PM Yekhanurov the Ukrainian
government's recent actions on the border with Transnistria.
Kramer underscored USG appreciation for the customs agreement
between Ukraine and Moldova, noting we understood this was
not an easy decision in the face of Russian criticism. He
pointed to the USG's public statements supporting the
Ukrainian decision and added the USG was working with the EU
to push back against Russian criticism of the border regime
and to stand together with Ukraine. Yekhanurov thanked
Kramer for USG support. He explained the MFA was monitoring
the situation on the border closely, but Ukrainian officials
were convinced they had reached the proper conclusion in
implementing the new border regime.

MFA: A Battle on Three Fronts
--------------


3. (C) MFA department chief Ponomarenko told Kramer the
Ukrainian government had to resolve three problems. First,
the Transnistrian blockade of trade into and out of the
region had to be resolved. Second, the Ukrainian government
had to "win the information war" and convince the Ukrainian
public of the rightness of its position toward Transnistria.
Ponomarenko commented that the Ukrainian government was
losing badly in the face of critical Russian statements and
television footage showing lines of trucks parked at the
border. Finally, the Ukrainian government faced a
longer-term task of preserving the "Yushchenko plan" on
Transnistria and the five-plus-two negotiation process.
Transnistrian strongman Smirnov had declared that, with
implementation of the customs protocol, Ukraine had sided
with Moldova and lost its status as a guarantor of the
Transnistrian settlement process. Ponomarenko also was
concerned that the Transnistrian authorities might undertake
some additional damaging action just before or during the
March 26 Ukrainian parliamentary elections to weaken support
for pro-government parties.

The Russia Factor
--------------


4. (C) Ponomarenko said Ukraine welcomed the wide support it
enjoyed from the U.S., the European Union, the OSCE, and
various European countries for the implementation of the
customs protocol. Only one state, Russia, had sided with
Transnistria. Ponomarenko asked for U.S. support in dealing
with Russia on Transnistria, a request which, he noted,
Foreign Minister Tarasyuk had also raised during his meeting
with the U.S. National Security Adviser. Romania/Moldova
Department director Cornelia Luskalova, heading a GOU working
group in Odesa, had recently reported to him that the
Transnistrians had stopped considering Ukrainian proposals to
resolve the border situation. At the moment, ten cargo
trucks were backed up at one border-crossing checkpoint. The
Ukrainian working group had offered to allow passage of the
trucks without customs inspections simply in order to permit
the renewed, free passage of traffic across the border. The
Transnistrian rejection of this concessionary proposal led
Ponomarenko to fear that the Transnistrian authorities were
prepared to wait out the Ukrainian government until after the
March 26 parliamentary elections. In this way, Ponomarenko
surmised that the Transnistrians were hoping to get a
reversal of the Ukrainian position after a new prime minister
and cabinet were selected.


5. (C) Saying that he had not read the actual text,
Ponomarenko continued that he understood the Russian Duma had
recently passed a resolution on the Transnistria situation
describing it as a human tragedy and an economic blockade.
Ponomarenko said the language recalled earlier Duma
resolutions on Kosovo. MFA was trying to persuade the
Ukrainian parliament (Rada) to counter with its own
resolution, but this would be tricky, since various Rada
factions might be able to seize on the issue to politicize it.


6. (C) Kramer said, during his participation in numerous
five-plus-two rounds, the meetings continued to consider the
same agenda items with no visible progress. The Ukrainian
government action was important because it disturbed the
status quo. He agreed with Ponomarenko that the
Transnistrians had provoked the current difficulty by
imposing an economic blockade on themselves. The USG had
issued a statement of support for the Ukrainian action and
instructions had recently gone out to U.S. embassies,
including in Moscow, to counter Russian disinformation.
Kramer said he hoped Transnistrian business enterprises, a
number of which had already registered with the Moldovan
government, would pressure the Transnistrian authorities to
lift the blockade. He assured Ponomarenko that the USG would
continue its firm support for the Ukrainian action, which was
an important development of the Yushchenko plan for
resolution of the Transnistria issue. He said the U.S.
Embassy would issue a statement (subsequently released)
reporting on his visit and reiterating USG support for
Ukraine's implementation of the customs protocol.

EU Support; Special Five-Plus-Two Session
--------------


7. (C) Ponomarenko said that, while welcoming the supportive
statement of EU High Representative for Security and Defense
Policy Javier Solana, an EU Presidency statement would be a
critical sign of interest in Transnistria. He also
understood that 60 percent of Transnistrian exports were
destined for EU countries. The EU could take an important
step by paralleling Ukrainian action and also requiring that
exports from Transnistria bear Moldovan customs seals.


8. (C) Kramer said he had recently spoken with EU Special
Representative for Transnistria Adriaan Jacobovitz de Szeged
and would speak to him again in the near future. He would
raise Ponomarenko's suggestions with Jacobovitz. In their
conversation, Kramer said he and Jacobovitz had agreed to
resist a Russian call to hold a special five-plus-two session
to consider the customs protocol and its impact on
Transnistria. They felt that, first, the customs protocol
was a bilateral issue between Ukraine and Moldova and a
special five-plus-two session would exaggerate its
significance. Second, the appropriate customs and border
security experts should consider the specifics of the
protocol's implementation, and not the five-plus-two
delegates. Ponomarenko agreed the customs protocol should
not be "internationalized" by bringing it into a
five-plus-two meeting.

Party of Regions; Kiev-Mohyla
--------------


9. (C) During Charge's March 13 dinner for Kramer, Party of
Regions foreign policy adviser Leonid Kozhara said he did not
believe Ukraine's implementation of the customs protocol
would have any positive results. The next Transnistrian
leadership election would see Smirnov cementing his hold on
power with a high level of support for his rule. Thus, the
long-term goal of promoting free and fair elections in
Transnistria would be fruitless. Kozhara added that,
according to accepted international trade practice, companies
did not need special registration or permits to export their
goods. In the U.S., for example, companies freely exported
their products. In agreeing to the customs protocol with
Moldova, Ukraine was simply acceding to Moldovan demands. He
hypothesized that the Ukrainian government had agreed to do
so in exchange for a Moldovan government refusal to allow the
establishment of overseas polling stations in Transnistria
(where the population voted overwhelmingly in the 2004
presidential race for then-Prime Minister and Party of
Regions leader Viktor Yanukovych). Kramer said Transnistria
required specific measures to control what was widely
recognized to be high levels of smuggling and trade in
contraband. Former Foreign Minister Kostyantin Hryshenko, a
member of the Ne Tak bloc and Republican Party, said, in his
view, the customs protocol implemenation was the right step.
Unfortunately, the issue had become politicized in
campaigning for the parliamentary elections. There might
have been no or little controversy if the step had been taken
after the elections or, as Kramer observed, in January when
originally scheduled.


10. (U) In a March 13 session with journalism graduate
students and media represenatives at Kiev-Mohyla Academy,
Kramer expressed USG support for Ukrainian leadership in
reinforcing Moldovan sovereignty and territorial integrity.


11. (U) Visit Embassy Kiev's classified website:
www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/kiev.
Gwaltney