UKRAINE/BELARUS SUMMIT STILL PLANNED FOR MARCH

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KYIV 000654

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/21/2017
TAGS: PREL KDEM PHUM ENRG EPET BO UP
SUBJECT: UKRAINE/BELARUS SUMMIT STILL PLANNED FOR MARCH

REF: A. MINSK 198


B. KYIV 478

C. 06 KYIV 4647

Classified By: Ambassador for reasons 1.4 (b,d).


1. (C) Summary: Plans are still proceeding for a Kyiv summit
between President Yushchenko and Belarusan President
Lukashenko, according to Deputy Foreign Minister Veselovsky
during a meeting with EUR DAS Kramer, NSC Director Sterling,
and the Ambassador. Kramer warned Veselovsky that such a
meeting could support Lukashenko's efforts to legitimize
himself without obtaining the concrete results that Ukraine
sought. MFA Fourth Territorial Department Director
Prokopchuk separately told visiting Embassy Minsk POL/ECON
Chief that the meeting would take place by the end of March.
In addition to bilateral agreements, both Prokopchuk and
Yuliya Mostova, arguably the country's most influential
journalist (and spouse of Defense Minister Hrytsenko),argued
that Belarus, as another natural gas and oil transit country,
could partner effectively with Ukraine to counter Russia's
role as a natural gas and oil supplier. End summary.


2. (C) Over a March 19 working lunch, Deputy Foreign Minister
Andriy Veselovsky told EUR DAS David Kramer, NSC Director
Adam Sterling, and Ambassador that President Yushchenko
needed, for domestic political reasons, to go forward with
plans to meet with Belarusan President Alexander Lukashenko.
First stressing that the Ukrainian MFA was not originally
responsible for the initiative, Veselovsky said that, now the
plans had leaked, Yushchenko would appear feckless if he were
to cancel. Yushchenko's representatives had seen the
proposed meeting as a chance for Yushchenko to show he can
secure concrete benefits for Ukraine. Among the agreements
the meeting could produce was simplified transit arrangements
for crossings between Slavutych and the Chornobyl nuclear
power plant (Chornobyl agreement). Veselovsky acknowledged
that the U.S. and EU would be irritated if a
Yushchenko-Lukashenko meeting took place, but, he reasoned,
their irritation would pass and Ukraine would continue to
benefit from the new Ukraine-Belarus agreements. If the
meeting did not take place, Yushchenko's critics in the
government would argue that Yushchenko had been unable to do
something as simple as holding a meeting with a neighboring
head of state.


3. (C) Kramer urged Veselovsky not to break ranks with U.S.
and EU friends in the absence of any positive steps -- such
as release of political prisoners -- from Lukashenko.
Lukashenko's repressive practices had isolated Belarus and
this isolation should continue until Lukashenko initiated
democratic reforms. While he understood Ukraine's special
circumstances arising from its shared border with Belarus,
Kramer warned that Lukashenko was likely to exploit
Yushchenko to legitimize himself without, in the end,
providing the concessions that Ukraine was seeking.


4. (C) On March 20, MFA Fourth Territorial Department
Director Ihor Prokopchuk told visiting Minsk POL/ECON Chief
Dereck Hogan that the Yushchenko-Lukashenko meeting would
definitely take place by the end of March and intimated that
this meeting would be a private one between the two leaders
only. Concluding the Chornobyl agreement would be the most
important topic, but Yushchenko and Lukashenko would discuss
six other agreements, including the signing of a
Ukraine-Belarus consular agreement. Prokopchuk said
Yushchenko would also push for release of political prisoners
(especially Aleksandr Kozulin) and for Belarusan permission
for the EU to open its mission in Minsk. He noted working
level discussions on Belarusan ratification of the
Ukraine-Belarus border demarcation treaty had gone nowhere,
so the two leaders would need to discuss this topic and come
to agreement on it for progress to be made.


5. (C) Prokopchuk told Hogan that recent events surrounding
the Belarus-Russia energy relationship had highlighted the
need for Belarus and countries in the region to diversify
their energy supplies. No matter how loyal Belarus had been
to the Russians on policy issues and how close the political
and diplomatic relationship, Russia in the end still insisted
on raising the price of energy to Belarus. This event could
cause Lukashenko to be more serious about stabilizing
relations with the West and other countries in the region in
order diversify energy supplies. Since the Belarus-Russia
row, Belarusans had shown Ukraine increased interest on
coordinating their energy arrangements. One proposal was for
Central Asian oil to be delivered to Belarus through the
Odesa-Brody pipeline. Prokopchuk concluded Ukraine wanted to
engage Belarus bilaterally and observe positive reform in the
country, but that it does not want to act as a "unilateral"
mediator in the process. He also stated that Belarusans had
no other alternative but to introduce reform on energy policy

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and other issues. Belarus would not make rapid decisions or
changes, however, partly because the country still had ample
energy reserves.


6. (U) In a possible indication that Ukrainian elite thinking
might be changing regarding Belarus, respected analytical
weekly Dzerkalo Tyzhnya editor-in-chief Yuliya Mostova urged
the U.S. to liberalize its approach to Belarus. In a March
19 meeting with Kramer, Sterling, and Ambassador, Mostova
said Lukashenko, now that he was Moscow's enemy number one,
was serious about wanting to get an agreement of gas transit
countries (Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Poland) that
could work effectively against Russia's monopoly of natural
gas supply. Such an agreement, once reached, Mostova argued,
would be good for the region and function like a "missile
defense shield" in the energy sphere.


7. (U) Visit Embassy Kyiv's classified website:
www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/kiev.
Taylor