U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is to arrive in Ukraine on April 14 after rescheduling her two-day visit a week ahead, U.S. officials said.
The visit comes days before Russian President Vladimir Putin is to visit Kyiv as part of his first tour of foreign countries after winning in the March 26 presidential election.
The short interval between the two visits led local media to label them as a major challenge to Ukrainian leadership, which needs to maintain friendly relations with both the United States and Russia, despite the present rocky relations between the two former Cold War foes.
Albright's trip, her second to Ukraine, was originally planned for April 20-21 but was moved ahead because of 'changes in [Albright's] appointment calendar in Washington,' the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv said in a statement on April 11. It did not elaborate.
A State Department spokesman earlier said the visit was aimed at emphasizing U.S. support for President Leonid Kuchma and Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko's 'ambitious reform agenda.'
Albright, who was invited to visit Ukraine by Foreign Minister Borys Tarasiuk, will also discuss a number of bilateral cooperation and international issues with senior Ukrainian officials.
Earlier this year, Albright singled out Ukraine along with Colombia, Indonesia and Nigeria as nations that would receive special U.S. attention and increased assistance in 2000.
'Ukraine is threatened by economic decline, corruption and crime,' Albright said in a Jan. 18 speech in Washington, D.C., which announced U.S. foreign policy priorities for 2000.
'Our hope is that this year will be memorable for positive reasons, the most important of which would be to carry out long-delayed and much-needed structural reforms,' Albright said.
Her trip is the latest in a series of visits to Kyiv by high-level U.S. officials in recent months, which have signaled the growing attention the United States has paid to Ukraine since Kuchma secured re-election last fall and appointed the reform-minded Yushchenko to head the Cabinet.
But the period since the presidential elections has also seen the United States become increasingly impatient over Ukraine's continued failure to achieve any visible economic progress. Along with confirming continued U.S. support for Ukraine, the visiting U.S. officials have spoken in stronger terms on the need to speed up reforms and root out corruption.
But while Ukraine presently cannot ignore the West's demands to remain eligible for its financial support, it also is not in a position to offend its huge neighbor, Russia, which accounts for most of Ukraine's energy needs and has increasingly pressed the country to pay off its energy debts.
The influential weekly Zerkalo Nedeli wrote on April 8 that while Ukrainian leaders would have to convince Albright of their allegiance to the pro-Western market reforms course, they would also have to be cautious not to anger Putin.
'[Ukraine] is feeling the pressure from its two main strategic partners,' Zerkalo Nedeli said.
'Washington demands unconditional support for Yushchenko, while Moscow is prepared to express its full dissatisfaction with Yushchenko's team. The Americans want reforms, The Russians want the debts paid off and the national policy revised.'
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ihor Hrushko said on April 11 the rescheduling of Albright's visit for April 14 was not linked to Putin's trip to Ukraine, which is expected between April 16 and 18.
Hrushko said the journey was rearranged at the request of the U.S. side, according to the Interfax news agency.
Putin will fly to Kyiv from London – his first foreign destination as Russia's president-elect.
Albright first traveled to Kyiv two years ago. During her hours-long visit, she convinced the government to back out of a multi-million dollar contract with Iran to supply equipment for a nuclear power plant.
