Putin Meets With Ukraine’s New President

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin held wide-ranging talks in Kiev on Saturday as the Kremlin leader made his first visit to the Ukrainian capital since the pro-Western government came to power in January.

Appearing at a joint news conference, the leaders downplayed strains in the two countries’ relationship triggered by Ukraine’s recent political crisis. They both pledged to build stronger economic ties and settle lingering boundary disputes from the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

“We will never consider Ukraine’s European choice as an alternative to cooperation with the Russian Federation,” Yushchenko said.

“Russia is our eternal neighbor, whom Ukraine wants to see as a friend and strategic partner.”

Putin described the summit as “very friendly and most constructive.”

“Today during talks with the president, the prime minister and the speaker of parliament, we did not get the feeling that there are some problems in our relations,” Putin said.

“They simply do not exist. There are some questions which we need to work on together, but this is a normal course of cooperation. I am satisfied with today’s meetings.”

Yushchenko said the key issues discussed included demarcation of the Ukrainian-Russian border; the situation of the Russian navy’s Black Sea Fleet, based in Ukraine; the desire of both countries to join the World Trade Organization; and the future of Moldova’s Trans-Dniester region, which is adjacent to Ukraine and is controlled by Moscow-backed separatists.

“I am satisfied with the openness, the spirit and pragmatism of our talks,” Yushchenko said. “Our meeting has given us the chance to see for ourselves that we have no unanswerable questions.”

During his one-day visit, Putin emphasized Moscow’s desire to implement a 2003 agreement among Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan to create a Common Economic Space for free movement of goods, services, capital and labor among those four former Soviet republics.

Moscow had backed Yushchenko’s opponent, former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, in last year’s bitterly contested election. Putin had made two visits during the campaign in what was widely seen as a show of support for Yanukovich.

Yushchenko’s victory and his pledge to move his nation toward membership in the European Union triggered fears in Russia that the new government would back away from the Common Economic Space agreement, which the Kremlin views as a key means of rebuilding influence in the former republics.

At Saturday’s news conference, however, Yushchenko endorsed moving forward with the agreement, placing particular stress on creating a free trade zone, which he said could help Ukraine reduce its growing trade deficit with Moscow.

Putin also met Saturday with Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, and she expressed strong support for at least some aspects of the economic cooperation plan.

“We call for forming the Common Economic Space,” she said to Putin, reported the Russian news agency Itar-Tass.

“The main thing is to lift all restrictions which prevent free trade.”

Putin stressed to Tymoshenko that plans for greater economic cooperation among the four former Soviet states need not interfere with Ukraine’s aspirations for European Union membership.

“It is an absolutely false impression that the Common Economic Space means movement in a different direction than work with the European Union,” Putin told Tymoshenko, reported the Russian news agency Interfax. He pointed out that Russia was making its own efforts to harmonize its laws with European legislation.

After their news conference, Putin joined Yushchenko and his American-born wife, Kateryna Chumachenko, at their country house in a village near Kiev, Itar-Tass reported.

Putin presented the Ukrainian first lady with a bouquet of flowers. The two presidents continued their meeting informally over supper, the news agency said.