BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

23/06/2009

Bohatyriova: Ukraine, Poland, Belarus to deepen Eastern Partnership with help of Kyiv initiative

Interfax-Ukraine

The national security councils of Ukraine, Belarus and Poland have agreed to set up the Kyiv initiative, which foresees deeper cooperation between countries as part of the European Union's Eastern Partnership initiative.

"We held a trilateral meeting today and discussed a number of issues, in particular, on regional cooperation, interaction in the economic and political spheres, as well as the deepening of cooperation as part of Eastern Partnership, and a number of decisions were taken for this goal. We have actually approved a new, efficient mechanism for trilateral cooperation, which we agreed to call the Kyiv initiative," Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Raisa Bohatyriova said at a press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday.

She said that at the trilateral meeting it had been agreed that the premiers of three countries should be informed of the state of the talks, and proposed that similar meetings be held at the level of concerned ministries.

Bohatyriova also said that the first meeting between the heads of working groups that should be created after the meeting in Kyiv on Tuesday would be held in September 2009.

"We hope that realistic ways for cooperation in implementing the Eastern Partnership program will already be proposed at a meeting to be held in October," she said.

She said that such an initiative would be aimed at strengthening trilateral cooperation between neighboring countries to realize their opportunities as part of the Eastern Partnership program.

State Secretary of the Belarus Security Council Yuri Zhadobin expressed confidence that the implementation of the Kyiv initiative would not have a negative effect on mutual relations between Belarus and Russia.

Chief of Poland's National Security Bureau Aleksander Szczyglo, in turn, pointed to a number of problems existing in the "triangle of mutual relations between Ukraine, Belarus and Poland."

He said that there had been a problem with ensuring human rights in Polish-Belarusian relations, and added that there had been no problems in Polish-Ukrainian relations since Ukraine had declared its independence.

Source:

http://www.kyivpost.com/nation/43873

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