CHUBAIS ENDS UKRAINIAN-RUSSIAN SUGAR WAR. Visiting Kyiv on 14 November ahead of President Leonid Kuchma's planned summit with President Boris Yeltsin, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Anatolii Chubais resolved the disagreement between the two countries over Russian imports of Ukrainian sugar, Russian agencies reported. Meeting with Kuchma and Ukrainian Prime Minister Valeriy Pustovoytenko, Chubais agreed that in 1998, Russia will buy 1 million tons of Ukrainian sugar, of which 600,000 tons will be exempt from the 25 percent tax Russia introduced in May. Russian participation in completing construction of two unfinished units at the Khmelnitsky and Rovno nuclear power stations was also discussed, Interfax reported. LF

POLISH FOREIGN MINISTER IN KYIV. Meeting in the Ukrainian capital on 15 November with President Kuchma and Security and Defense Council Secretary Vladimir Gorbulin, Bronislaw Geremek affirmed that Poland considers relations with Ukraine a priority and will support Kyiv's aspiration for closer integration into Europe. Geremek and Kuchma agreed on the need for a coordinated policy aimed at having an positive influence on the situation in Belarus. They argued that the isolation of Belarus could prove counter-productive, according to Reuters. LF

U.S. PROTESTS ANTONESCU'S REHABILITATION. In a letter to President Emil Constantinescu, Senator Alfonso D'Amato and Congressman Christopher Smith have protested the decision of the Romanian prosecutor-general to start procedures for the posthumous judicial rehabilitation of six members of Marshal Ion Antonescu's wartime government (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 23 October 1997), RFE/RL reported on 14 November. They said all six officials are "cabinet members in a government that was responsible for the persecution of the entire Romanian Jewish community and the deportation and murder of at least 250,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jews." Their rehabilitation "would call into question the sincerity of Romania's commitment to the West's most fundamental shared values and is likely to trigger a reassessment of support for Romania's candidacy for membership in our economic and security institutions." MS

YELTSIN, KUCHMA MEET IN MOSCOW. Yeltsin concluded informal talks with his Ukrainian counterpart, Leonid Kuchma, on 17 November, RFE/RL's Moscow bureau reported. The two leaders endorsed quotas on duty-free imports of Ukrainian sugar, agreed on by Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Chubais and Ukrainian Prime Minister Valeriy Pustovoytenko in Kyiv (see Part II). They also discussed holding regular talks between the presidents and prime ministers of both countries. On 16 November, Yeltsin told journalists that he and Kuchma agreed the two countries would stop charging value-added tax on each other's products. Kyiv has objected to Moscow's decision in 1996 to charge 20 percent VAT on most Ukrainian goods, although Russian officials maintain that Kyiv imposed VAT on Russian goods first. LB

RUSSIAN GAS HEATS SOUTH KAZAKHSTAN. Kazakhstan's southern regions have begun receiving gas from Russia, ITAR-TASS reported on 15 November. The regions, which include the former capital Almaty, were without gas for a week following Turkmenistan's decision to cut gas shipments to Ukraine via the Bukhara-Ural pipeline. Kazakhstan's southern regions had received gas transported by that pipeline as compensation for the pipeline running through that territory. BP