Washington Embassy a Priority for New Nations

Finally, after five months behind a dark door with no name on the seventh floor of an old downtown office building, the Embassy of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan is spelled out in gold plastic letters.

The embassy is four rooms and a staff of four. “This is perhaps the smallest embassy, but it’s enough for us,” said Ambassador Roza Otunbayeva, seated before her new country’s red flag, whose golden center design symbolizes the Kyrgyz “window to the world.”

So far, according to the U.S. State Department’s Office of Foreign Missions, about half of the 20 new nations have joined the ranks of the 160 accredited ambassadors or charges d’affaires.

The newcomer nations are not prominently situated in stately townhouses and spacious mansions along exclusive Embassy Row.

But for these independent, struggling countries, having even a tiny foothold in Washington--above all other world capitals--is a top priority for entering and becoming equal partners in the international community.

“Our independence is very fragile. To save and protect it, it is important to be in Washington,” said Otunbayeva, who served as Kyrgyzstan’s deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs before coming here. “The weight of independence is heavy because of our economic difficulties. We are a very sick organism. We have to perform surgery, change our heart.

“People don’t know anything about my republic (the predominantly Muslim former Soviet Kirghizia). They don’t know how to spell it. They don’t know it exists in the world. I have to make our voice heard. It is a lot of work, and I have just two hands. The Russian Embassy has several hundred.”

The fledgling embassies typically occupy small, sparsely furnished quarters in nondescript downtown buildings. Whether it is the former Yugoslav republic of Slovenia or the former Soviet republic of Belarus, they have few rooms, few staff members and few handmade mementos of their homeland. Their diplomats do double, even triple, duty.

Many embassies are temporarily camped out in these closet-size quarters until they can afford structures befitting their sovereign status. They have the prerequisite fax, computer and copy machine, but they also often have donated furniture and still-unpacked boxes of books and papers.

Croatia is an example of upward mobility. Early this year, its small staff plans to move from an office building into a brick house that belonged to the Austrian Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue’s Embassy Row.

A Washington embassy is an incredible achievement for war-plagued, earthquake-ravaged Armenia, geographically the smallest of the former Soviet republics.

The Armenian Embassy occupies five rooms at the end of a third-floor office corridor a couple of blocks from the U.S. Capitol. The door opens on a large national tricolor of red, blue and orange and a framed copy of Armenia’s declaration of independence.

Because of the space shortage, the embassy’s only reception so far--to celebrate one year of independence Sept. 21--had to be held in another building.

The staff of five, all of Armenian heritage, is headed by Charge d’Affaires Alexander Arzoumanian, who also represents the country’s 3.4 million people at the United Nations.

The embassy, which recently started issuing its own visas, takes calls about the new country’s banking laws, copyright laws and procedures for starting a business.

“Some people want to explore the possibility of living there or retiring there,” said Mary Ann Kibarian, assistant to Arzoumanian. “Some ask how to get in touch with our best computer scientists, how to adopt Armenian children, how to buy Armenian cognac.”

“An embassy in Washington is the real locomotive, the engine for new diplomacy for new democratic Ukraine,” Ambassador Oleh H. Bilorus said. “For us to be integrated in world structures, the United States is most important. We are here not just to shake hands, but to have intense political, financial and scientific cooperation and partnership.”

Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk was on hand last May for the opening of the embassy, a carpeted suite of eight offices. A dozen oil paintings by a celebrated Ukrainian landscape artist decorate some walls.

All nine of the diplomatic staff are from the capital, Kiev. Among former Soviet republics, Ukraine’s embassy is the second-largest, after the 250-member Russian Embassy.

The longstanding Ukrainian mission at the United Nations and the 1 million to 2 million Ukrainian-Americans helped establish the embassy.

There was a rush on visas after independence from “Ukrainian-Americans who wished to go see for themselves what was happening there, especially at the time of the first anniversary last Aug. 24,” said Yaroslav V. Voitko, assistant to the ambassador. A stack of visas is marked “rush” for businessmen.

“We are a very big country of 53 million people and have huge scientific, technical and industrial potential,” Bilorus said. “We should have a big embassy, our own building.”

The embassy plans to move late this month to a five-story office-and-apartment complex and expand its staff to about 30, and eventually to 50. “We have lots of hopes and expectations in that building,” the ambassador said.

Because the 1940 Soviet takeover of the Baltic nations was never recognized by the United States, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have long had legations in Washington or New York.

The old State Department restriction limiting Soviet Embassy staff travel to a 25-mile radius was dropped in the fall, said Donna Gilotti of the foreign missions office. Under an “open-lands” policy, with some exceptions for the Russians, the staffs of these new embassies are freer to roam the United States.