TRANSCRIPT OF AMBASSADOR TAYLOR'S PODCAST FOR AUGUST
Good day.
I'm glad to be back, talking to you from the U.S. Embassy on our podcast series. This last month has been another busy one and I'm very glad to give you another report.
Let me start off with one of my favorite programs that the U.S. Government sponsors. And this is where we provide the opportunity for Ukrainians to visit the United States. We have programs for high school students, for college students, for professionals, for military. We have a range of these exchange programs and they provide an opportunity for Ukrainians to go to the United States, to see and live with Americans. They also provide an opportunity for Ukrainians to teach Americans about their country, about your country. This is very important. There are a lot of Americans who know and follow events in Ukraine very carefully. However, there are a lot of Americans who don't. And the Ukrainian exchangees, the Ukrainian citizens who go on these exchange programs to the United States, are the best ambassadors that Ukraine has out in the regions. They tell Americans about Ukrainian history, and Ukrainian current events, and Ukrainian food. They tell them about the problems as well as the successes that Ukrainians have had. So these are very important.
One of my favorites of these exchange programs is the exchange programs we have for high school students, and this is called the "Future Leaders Exchange Program" - FLEX. This is an exchange program that allows high school students (Ukrainian high school students) to go to the United States, live with families (live with American families), go to American high schools with their colleagues, or counterparts (American counterparts), go to their churches, their malls, their synagogues, the movies, to integrate into American society in a lot of different cities and small towns, around our country, around the United States.
We have two organizations that help us manage and implement these exchanges; the American Councils and IREX do a great job. They take applications for next year's exchange programs starting in the fall, so I urge any Ukrainian citizen who is interested in these programs to look at our website and follow the link to these application procedures. I think that, again, this is great for us and I hope it's great for Ukrainians.
Second thing that I will talk to you about this month is about Americans coming to Ukraine. And we've had a range of visitors; we're always very glad to welcome visitors from the United States, here in Kyiv and around the country. One of these visits was from the U.S. Military. We, the United States, was one of about 14 countries that participated in a military exercise known as "Sea Breeze." It took place down near Odesa, in Mykolayiv. It was very successful. The training that goes on between Americans, Ukrainians, and 12 other countries' militaries, mostly navy, marines, in this particular exercise, is very good for all the militaries concerned. The Ukrainian military looks forward to this training; we've been doing this particular exercise, the "Sea Breeze" exercise, for the past ten years and it is always a highlight of the training experiences for the sailors and marines, in particular of the Ukrainian navy. This is good for them and it's good for us. It was good for the economies of Odesa and Mykolayiv. There were a lot of people that noticed the exercise and a lot who participated. There were protests, and the United States government understands very well protests. We have protests in our own country, and as long as they are peaceful and law-abiding, these protests are expressing their democratic rights, exercising their democratic rights to say what they think. And so we have absolutely no problem with these protests, and this year the protests made their point in a lawful way. So this was, I think, a good experience in that regard as well.
Another set of visitors we had was from the U.S. Congress. And this was, I believe this was the largest group of Congressmen and Senators that has visited Ukraine at one time. And they came here for a parliamentary assembly of other parliamentarians from around Europe. They had a series of meetings with their colleagues (their parliamentary colleagues); they of course met with Speaker Moroz. They also had a good session with President Yushchenko. They met with cabinet members. They met with a lot of members of Verhovna Rada. This was an important visit for them, and I think an important visit for all the parliamentary members who visited Kyiv. They had a great time.
They had a good trip to Chernobyl, where they were able to see the assistance programs in action which our US Congress pays for, votes for, so that effort in Chernobyl - both on the clean-up as well as the rehabilitation - is one that they are intimately familiar with and now have actually seen, so they can continue their support for these programs.
We've had State Department visitors come in, also visiting with the Prime Minister, and the Speaker, and the President, and Mrs. Tymoshchenko - the senior leaders in this government. And we always appreciate the opportunity to exchange views and hear how Ukrainian officials view events and discuss how these events are going to affect US/Ukraine relations.
The last thing that I will mention here in August is of course the election campaign. When I arrived here a little over a year ago, I told people that I was actually glad to be here in this three-year period which I thought would have no election. Well, I was wrong. A couple of months ago, as you know, the President, and the Prime Minister, and the Speaker got together and decided they would have elections, have early elections at the end of September, end of next month. And of course that's entirely a decision for Ukrainians to make and we support the Ukrainians making those decisions.
We often get asked, and I'm sure I will be asked again, "Which party, or which candidate, does the U.S. Government support?" And the answer is we don't support parties and candidate. This is not for the American Government or any foreign government to choose sides in this or any other election campaign. This is for Ukrainians to decide. The U.S. Government does care about the outcome of this election, and we care because we care about policies that the new Ukrainian government, whatever it is, will follow, will pursue. So we support principles, we support policies that will bring Ukrainian more closely and more integrated into Europe. We support policies that will make Ukraine more democratic, will improve the respect for the rule of law. We support policies that move Ukraine towards a more prosperous society, movement into the World Trade Organization, pursuing a free trade agreement with the European Union. Movement toward Europe, we think, is a very important policy that most of the large, responsible parties who will compete in this election also support. We don't support individual parties or personalities, we support policies and programs. And so that will be our guide. We very much support a free and fair election. We will do our best to bring in observers, monitors, who will be around at voting places around the country. Other countries will do this as well. There will be a lot of observation to be sure that these elections will be free and fair. If these elections are free and fair - as I'm sure they will be - then the U.S. Government will support and work with and engage whatever government emerges from the government that the Ukrainian people choose.
With that, let me wish you a good end of your summer and I look forward to talking to you again next month.
Thank you.