TRANSCRIPT OF AMBASSADOR TAYLOR'S PODCAST FOR JUNE

Dobry Den. I'm glad to be back again to talk to you about what the United States Embassy has been doing in Kyiv, Ukraine in the month of May.

I'm talking to you today from my home. I'm very glad to be here. Behind me is one of the paintings that we have in the house. It's an American artist, it's an American scene, but we chose this and other pictures in the house in order to appeal to Ukrainians. We think that there are a lot of similarities between the United States and some of the scenes from the United States and Ukraine and the scenes from this great country.

This month has been a busy one, an exciting one, a little bit of a dangerous one in Ukraine. Of course, I'm talking about the political situation. In the end, we saw the resolution of the political crisis that I spoke about last month that Ukrainians have been reading about and participating in to some degree over the past couple of months. The president, the prime minister, the speaker of the parliament have agreed on a way forward, which we in the United States and many countries around the world are very pleased that they were able to come to come to this resolution in a peaceful way, without violence, in a way that leads to a resolution. The resolution that these leaders have chosen is elections, the election on the thirtieth of September. We think the resolution of the crisis is a positive step. It shows that there is political will to make difficult decisions, to come to compromises. That's important. It's also important to implement this program, implement this solution.

I said it was a little scary, because there were some times when all parties came very close to stepping over the line of legality, of constitutionality, of democratic norms, and I believe that democratic institutions actually have taken a beating this month, and it's going to be important for Ukrainians and their government to do some repair work on these democratic institutions.

It's important now that in the next several months leading up to the elections on the thirtieth of September, that all sides work to make this agreement a successful one. It's important that no side takes action that will damage the prospects for a successful election. And my hope is that after all of this effort, after all of these discussions, and after all of the questionable actions, that Ukraine will be able to come out of all of this in a more democratic way, in a more united way, and indeed a more European way. If Ukraine can solve those in that way and come out in better shape than when it went in, then it will all be worth it.

The next thing that I'd like to talk about has to do with a topic that I haven't talked about before, but is extremely important for Ukraine, and for Europe, and for the United States, and for the world, and it's climate change. President Bush, in May, came forward with a new proposal. He has been thinking about this for a long time. His administration has been thinking about this for a long time. He's worked with his colleagues around the world on a very important issue of climate change, and has come up with a proposal that would bring in all of the countries who are affected by and who effect climate change around the world. He has put forward this proposal in the context of the United Nations to take a combined effort, to make a combined effort to move forward on global warming, greenhouse gases, energy security, energy independence, economic growth. These are all important components of President Bush's proposal. For the first time, it would bring in countries that have not been included in the discussions on global warming before including the Chinese and the Indians. I think this is an important step to take. Each country will have the ability to make decisions on their own, based on their own circumstances. We think this is also an innovative part of President Bush's proposal.

The third thing that I'd like to talk about is a very enjoyable trip I made to Crimea this month. I went down to Bakhchisaray where I was able to observe a very constructive and a very heartwarming demonstration of tolerance, and it was tolerance among children. The United States Embassy, along with the government in Crimea, has funded a program that brings together Russian speakers, Ukrainian speakers, Tatar children into a course that teaches English. So here are Ukrainians from three different backgrounds who are coming together to learn English that enabled them to communicate, that enabled them to communicate that enabled them to put on skits in English. I had conversations with most of the children in the room. We had a good conversation about families and about pets, and as I say their skits were done all in English, their songs were done all in English, they were able to communicate with themselves all in English, and I believe this is setting a good foundation for those children to be able to recognize the backgrounds and recognize the culture of each other. Whether they be Russian speaking, Ukrainian speaking or Tatar, they now have a common language. This, I think, is important for these children. I think it's important for Crimea, where there are difficulties along these lines. I think it's important for Ukraine. For this reason, we are very pleased to - first of all having sponsored it this year - it's been so successful that we are going to expand it next year. Make it available to more children, bring in more teachers, and we hope have even greater effect.

This is just one of the many things that we're doing here in the Embassy in Kyiv. I look forward to talking to you again next month.