Kravchuk Repeats Vow to Rid Ukraine of A-Weapons

Making his first foreign visit as head of Europe’s second-largest nation, Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk on Tuesday reaffirmed his country’s commitment to nuclear disarmament and agreed on specific steps to open land to resettle ethnic Germans driven from the region during the Stalin era.

Speaking at a press conference at the end of a two-day visit to Germany, Kravchuk said that all tactical nuclear arms will be removed from Ukrainian soil by this summer and strategic nuclear missiles will be dismantled by the end of 1994.

“We stand in third place in the world in terms of nuclear weapons, and we want to be an example to others” to disarm, he said, adding that conventional troop strength in Ukraine will be reduced by a factor of four, to about 220,000.

Ukraine inherited its military strength from its role as one of the largest, most strategically important constituent republics of the former Soviet Union. Second only to Russia in land mass among European states, Ukraine is also the Continent’s fifth-most-populous country, its 52 million population exceeded only by Russia, Germany, Britain and France.

Kravchuk’s choice of Germany for his first foreign visit was aimed at building his country’s most crucial Western economic relationship. Germany now provides about 60% of all Western aid to the Soviet Union’s 12 successor states; Germany possesses many of the essentials--in terms of economic and technical help--that Ukraine urgently needs as it tries to rebuild its economy.

In a move aimed at securing more German aid, Kravchuk agreed Tuesday on specific measures aimed at resettling large numbers of ethnic Germans in southern Ukraine. “He has offered to help several hundred thousand (ethnic Germans) resettle” there, said Horst Waffenschmidt, state secretary in the German Interior Ministry responsible for ethnic German affairs.

He said that a German-Ukrainian government working group will meet in Kiev in a few weeks to discuss specific measures to attract German settlers and that a German-Ukrainian Foundation to promote and finance such measures has also been established.

The fate of the estimated 2 million to 2 1/2 million ethnic Germans scattered across the former Soviet Union is an urgent priority for German Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s government, which wants to improve their fate in hopes of stemming the flow of those wanting to resettle in Germany.

Ethnic Germans are arriving from the former Soviet territories at a rate of 12,000 a month, and Waffenschmidt said another 500,000 have already applied for permission to emigrate. “It can’t keep going at this pace,” he said.