When Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk assumed his post in April, he was hailed by Western media as a friend of the West.
Six months later, while Tarasyuk has remained in fairly good standing with the West, he has become a decidedly less popular figure at home. Several less-than-di-plomatic public statements and the imposition of rigid security rules at the ministry building have drawn the wrath of the journalists, fellow politicians and the public.
Journalists particularly are in an uproar about new policies at the Foreign Ministry that they say make the mammoth, Soviet-built building on Mikhail-ivska Square seem every bit as cold and imposing on the inside as it looks on the outside.
One of Tarasyuk's first moves when he assumed his post was to announce plans to completely revamp the ministry's internal rules. The move was designed to 'ensure conditions for more effective performance of the foreign policy department,' as ministry spokes-man Yuri Yarmilko put it.
Apparently, among the key tenets to ensuring 'effective performance' was a complete moratorium on ministry personnel speaking with the press, limiting press access to the ministry's weekly briefing, and instituting stricter press accreditation guidelines.
'The idea [of the makeover] was to create a Western-style system,' one long-time foreign affairs journalist told me. 'But with all due respect to Mr. Tarasyuk, what has been created is a parody of the Western system.'
Indeed, the general aura of secrecy and stiffness that has pervaded the Foreign Ministry since Tarasyuk took over recall the Soviet Union more than they imitate the West, whose own bureaucratic system is hardly a model for imitation anyway.
Tarasyuk has doubled the amount of accreditation needed for the press and limited the flow of information to those that do manage to get accredited. Journalists and foreign diplomats alike confirm that, in addition to being harder to access, the ministry's weekly briefings have become decidedly less substantive.
Tarasyuk got off on the wrong foot almost immediately with journalists when he didn't bother to show up at the first press briefing after being appointed foreign minister. He skipped the second, as well.
'We just assumed he thought that it's not so important to communicate with journalists, that it was a waste of time,' commented another journalist.
The rumor is that Tarasyuk's dislike of journalists goes back to his days as first deputy foreign minister, when he was working as an instrumental player in the marathon Black Sea Fleet negotiations with Russia. As the story goes, after giving an interview to a Russian journalist, Tarasyuk glanced around his office and discovered that an important document concerning the Black Sea Fleet negotiations had disappeared from his desk. A few days later, he rediscovered it – splashed on the pages of an influential Russian newspaper.
Whether there's truth to the rumor or not, it seems something must have sparked the foreign minister's antagonism toward the press. Almost overnight, the entire ministry staff has adopted the mantle of silence. Foreign press office staffers who only yesterday seemed so friendly and ready to offer a comment are now forbidden to utter much more than a terse 'hello' with journalists they have known for ages.
Boring press briefings, silent staffers and antagonism toward the media might be explained if they accompanied some new, radically progressive foreign policy thrust. The fact is, however, that Ukraine's foreign policy has changed little since Tarasyuk stepped in.
As first deputy foreign minister, and earlier as ambassador to NATA, Tarasyuk had a well-deserved reputation as a man of action, as someone who got things done rather than talked about getting things done. Tarasyuk spearheaded several important foreign policy initiatives at his previous post.
Besides his role in the fleet talks, he negotiated the charter that formalized Ukrainian-NATO relations in Madrid last year, was responsible for wide-scale treaties on friendship and cooperation with both Russia and Romania, and is rumored to have used his UN and NATO contacts to pressure Russia into keeping its hands away from Crimea.
As these initiatives indicate, Tarasyuk was an effective warrior for Ukrainian independence in his lesser position. Out of the spotlight, he could ignore the need to balance Ukraine's competing interests with Russia and the West, a balancing act that is at the center of Ukraine's foreign policy. For those efforts, he was rewarded with the Foreign Ministry's top post and was almost universally embraced, especially by the West.
Tarasyuk has in fact followed through with the effort to integrate with Western countries. However, his passionate but undiplomatic comments about Ukraine's desire to join Western institutions such as NATO and the European Union can no longer be disguised in his new role as Foreign Minister. And he has made several public comments that have unnecessarily harmed Ukrainian-Russian relations at a time when relations between the two neighbors were finally beginning to thaw after years of tension.
Tarasyuk created a public relations disaster when, just days before the arrival of Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov in May, he spoke up about NATO relations at a seminar in Kyiv: 'Integration into transatlantic structures is one of the priorities of Ukrainian foreign policy; [furthermore] it agrees with its national interests.'
Such a statement would have been acceptable for Tarasyuk the NATO Ambassador. But the words were unacceptable for Tarasyuk the foreign minister, especially on the eve of a visit by his Russian counterpart.
In the wake of the comments, the Russian State Duma, which is famous for its allergic reaction to the word 'NATO,' immediately postponed the ratification of the Ukrainian-Russian Friendship Treaty again, citing Tarasyuk's words.
President Kuchma himself reproached Tarasyuk over the reckless statement in what were said to be 'fatherly tones.' And the Foreign Ministry slipped into crisis-control mode and issued a statement stressing that Ukraine's course toward NATO was not changing.
None of which helped the meeting between Tarasyuk and Primakov, which was notable only for its utter fruitlessness. Tarasyuk admitted the talks were tough. About the only thing he mentioned with pleasure was that at one point he forced Primakov to wait in his reception room for several minutes, as Primakov had once done to ex-Foreign Minister Henady Udovenko in Moscow. And to this day, the main thorns in the side of Ukrainian-Russian relations – the border issue, the 'zero-variant' treaty, et cetera, remain inexorably stuck in place.
Meanwhile, Tarasyuk even managed to create a public relations scandal with the West at the Group of Seven summit in Birmingham in May. Responding to allegations that Ukraine was backing away from its commitment to close Chernobyl, Tarasyuk huffed that the allegations were 'an attempt to pass off responsibility for unfulfilled financial obligations onto the shoulders of Ukraine.'
The responsibility for Chernobyl is a debatable issue. But up until that time Ukraine had managed to avoid sharp reactions that threatened to disrupt the so-called diplomatic bonhomie. The comment drew the wrath of the foreign community, adding to the impression that Ukraine was using Chernobyl as a bargaining chip to secure Western funds.
All of which begs the question: will Tarasyuk ever grow into his new role, or would it be better for the country – and his own reputation – if he moved into a role more suited to his talents?
(The author is a journalist who covers foreign affairs for a daily newspaper in Kyiv.)
