UKRAINE: NEW FOREIGN MINISTER YATSENYUK -- A

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KYIV 000924

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT ALSO FOR EUR/UMB

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/06/2017
TAGS: PGOV ETRD PREL PINR UP
SUBJECT: UKRAINE: NEW FOREIGN MINISTER YATSENYUK -- A
CHANGE OF STYLE AND GENERATION

REF: STATE 40932

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


1. (SBU) Summary: Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Ukraine's newest and
youngest foreign minister, is extremely bright and, although
he has no previous experience at MFA, will pick up the full
scope of his new responsibilities quickly. He puts an
emphasis on the economic side of his new duties, since he has
past experience as Minister of the Economy (September
2005-August 2006) and National Bank Deputy Governor (January
2003-February 2005, Acting Governor from mid-2004 to February
2005). He also acknowledges the importance of European and
Euro-Atlantic integration for Ukraine. Yatsenyuk puts an
emphasis on winning the support of the Ukrainian public for
these strategic goals through a good public relations
campaign and focusing on practical and achievable near-term
accomplishments that brings Ukraine closer to EU and NATO
membership. He has given no indication whether and when he
plans to change the MFA top leadership.


2. (C) Comment: Yatsenyuk has made the right initial
comments on the EU and NATO, but we will have to engage him
to ensure he focuses on traditional foreign policy areas that
are also of importance to us -- inter alia, Ukraine's
regional leadership on Transnistria, its bilateral relations
with Belarus, and membership in GUAM. Although he is
familiar with a range of USG officials from his time as
Minister of the Economy and Acting National Bank Governor,
his upcoming visit to Washington will be an opportunity to
expand the range of his personal contacts and to underscore
the full scope of areas where we look for Ukrainian support
and engagement. End summary/comment.

A Fresh Face at MFA
--------------


3. (SBU) New Foreign Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, appointed
and confirmed March 21, described some of his plans to us
during a March 29 meeting with Ambassador, a March 30
briefing to the diplomatic corps (G8, EU, NATO, and CIS
countries),and an April 2 meeting with CODEL Price. (At the
diplomatic corps briefing, Ambassador also transmitted the
Secretary's congratulatory message contained reftel.)

SIPDIS
Thirty-two years young, sporting a crew cut, slim, on the
tall side, and fluent in English, Yatsenyuk looked as if he
could have just strolled off of a collegiate basketball court
and donned a business suit. His self-confidence came through
in his relaxed manner and easy laughter. In greeting CODEL
Price, Yatsenyuk welcomed the members to a democracy "with a
certain political tension," and, when Representative Price
offered his congratulations for his easy confirmation,
Yatsenyuk wryly joked that perhaps Price should offer
condolences instead.

Straddling Two Camps...but the President's man
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4. (SBU) Yatsenyuk told CODEL Price his surprisingly easy
confirmation (426 MPs from a total of 450, with 432 actually
present, voted in favor) had occurred because his nomination
had been a satisfactory solution for all the parties
concerned -- the President, Prime Minister, and parliamentary
coalition -- after repeated showdowns over the previous
nominee. At the time of his nomination, he served as a
Presidential Secretariat Deputy Chief of Staff, but he had
also worked with Prime Minister Yanukovych in 2004 as acting
National Bank governor. President Yushchenko was comfortable
with his approach to European and Euro-Atlantic integration,
including acceleration of Ukraine's movement toward NATO,
but, at the same time, he had no binding obligations either
to the parliamentary coalition or to the opposition. His
only obligation, Yatsenyuk intoned, was to the Ukrainian
nation.


5. (SBU) Yatsenyuk said that, under the Vienna Convention,
the heads of state and government and the foreign minister
represent the nation. According to the Ukrainian
constitution, the president steers the direction of foreign
policy, the prime minister executes it, and the foreign
minister had to be a diplomat. He was a diplomat not just to
a foreign audience but also within the government. He was
under the president, but had to do his best to cooperate with
the government. At times, he had to convince Yanukovych to
change his position; rarely, he had the same task with
Yushchenko, but Yushchenko was "always oriented in the right
direction."


6. (C) Note: Diplomatic modesties aside, in the

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constitutional crisis which emerged after President
Yushchenko signed an April 2 decree dismissing the Rada and
calling new elections, Yatsenyuk squarely sided with
Yushchenko. In the emergency Cabinet meeting convened by
Yanukovych after Yushchenko announced the decree, only
Yatsenyuk and Defense Minister Hrytsenko, the other
Yushchenko nominee, defended the decree's legality and voted
against the Cabinet resolutions attempting to prevent its
implementation. Yatsenyuk voted for the Yushchenko position
in the National Security and Defense Council meeting April 4,
talked of the MFA's responsibility for ensuring Embassies
prepared overseas polling stations, supported Yushchenko's
initial position that international mediation was not
necessary, and stood in for Yushchenko in an April 11 visit
to Strasbourg to engage European institutional
representatives on why the dismissal decree and new elections
were necessary.

Policy Priorities
--------------


7. (U) Not surprisingly for a former Economy Minister and
deputy National Bank director, Yatsenyuk defined economic
goals, such as obtaining a free trade agreement with the EU,
as one of his top two priorities during his briefing to the
diplomatic corps. His second priority would be protecting
the rights of every Ukrainian abroad, including facilitating
their ability to travel. During his meeting with CODEL
Price, Yatsenyuk vented over a 126-page USTR response on
Ukraine's preparations to enter the WTO. Ambassador pointed
out the length of the response represented the USG's
seriousness in bringing the accession to completion.
Yatsenyuk understood that USTR was trying to provide accurate
and detailed input, but he questioned whether the time
required to respond to every issue that USTR had raised might
not become an obstacle in and of itself to Ukraine's WTO
accession process. (Comment: Ukraine's negotiators do not
seem to share his view.) He definitely planned to meet with
USTR Schwab during his Washington visit to discuss this.

NATO and EU
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8. (C) Yatsenyuk is not only Ukraine's youngest foreign
minister ever, but, since he graduated from Chernivtsi State
University in 1996, he is one of the emerging generation of
Ukrainian leaders who have spent their entire working career
in independent Ukraine. Thus, he has developed his
professional approach and skills in a country with open
borders, access to western media, and a market economy. The
different orientation that he has from his older predecessor,
Borys Tarasyuk, is evident with regard to Ukraine's European
and Euro-Atlantic integration. Yatsenyuk is less ideological
and more pragmatic in his approach, stressing that Ukraine
should work on the practical implementation of the steps that
would bring it closer to the EU and NATO, without too much
emphasis on terminology. (Note: Despite Yatsenyuk's
remarks, EU EC Charge Dirk Schuebel said the Ukrainian side
was still pushing for adoption of the term "association"
during EU-Ukraine negotiations on the "New Enhanced
Agreement.")


9. (C) In his meetings, Yatsenyuk also stressed the
importance of a PR and media campaign with respect to
possible EU and NATO membership, noting, for example, that
too few Ukrainians understood that the NATO-Ukraine action
plan dealt more with such areas as democratic and social
reform and not military reform. In his March 29 meeting with
Ambassador (before the current political crisis began),
Yatsenyuk said the planned July 9 NATO North Atlantic Council
(NAC) ambassadors' visit to Kyiv to mark the 10th anniversary
of the NATO-Ukraine relationship would be a real opportunity
to present a positive NATO image. (Comment: Yatsenyuk has a
history of using public diplomacy well. While acting
governor of the National Bank, Yatsenyuk dealt with a
threatened run on the banks by successfully combining
temporary restrictions with a public information campaign.)
He also mentioned that Ukraine needed to find an EU "old
Europe" member to act as a champion within the EU for
Ukraine's membership, as Poland was among the "new Europe"
members.

Russia Relations
--------------


10. (C) The fact that Yatsenyuk elected to visit Brussels
first, rather than Moscow as is traditional for Ukrainian
leaders, was clear evidence of his orientation. A Foreign
Ministry working level contact noted that Yatsenyuk had said

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his first overseas trips would be to Brussels, Washington,
and Moscow. Yatsenyuk had planned to visit Moscow in
conjunction with President Yushchenko's April visit, but the
trip was postponed when Yushchenko had to cancel because of
the political crisis. In responding to a CODEL Price
question on Ukraine's future relations with Russia and the
EU, Yatsenyuk addressed Russia in two sentences, describing
it as an important neighbor that could not be ignored, and
then devoted most of his answer to EU relations. Yatsenyuk,
drawing on his Economic Ministry experience, did address
Ukraine's involvement in the Single Economic Space (SES),
noting that Ukraine had urged the adoption of two agreements
within the SES context on energy transit facilities and
buying and selling of oil and gas. SES discussions had been
in abeyance, but Yatsenyuk was ready to push the two
proposals should discussions resume. The key to dealing with
Russia, and every other country, Yatsenyuk noted, was a
stable domestic situation in Ukraine.

MFA Personnel Shuffles -- None Yet
--------------


11. (U) The same Foreign Ministry contact said no decisions
had been made regarding a change in MFA's senior leadership.
Yatsenyuk was interviewing MFA senior officials and would
make a decision fairly soon on whether to retain them or
bring in new faces. (Note: One first deputy foreign
minister position is currently vacant after the previous
incumbent, Anton Buteyko, suffered a stroke in 2006.)

Personal Details
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12. (U) A March 29, 2007, article in Kyiv daily, Segodnya,
reported that Yatsenyuk's father, Petro Yatsenyuk, is an
assistant professor of history at Chernivtsi University, and
his mother, Mariya, teaches French at the same university.
He has one sister, Alina, who is seven years older, married
to an American, and lives in Santa Barbara, California.
Yatsenyuk's wife, Tereza, whom he met when both worked at
Aval bank, is four years his senior. They have two
daughters, seven-year-old Khrystyna and two-year-old Sofiya.
Yatsenyuk's mother comes from Kolumiya, Ivano-Frankivsk
oblast, a center of the Carpathian Hutsul ethnic subgroup;
Yatsenyuk collects Hutsul handicrafts.


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