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NATO REPORTEDLY SENDS BLUNT MESSAGE TO BELARUSIAN, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTS. Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma have been sent messages stressing that "their presence at the NATO summit in Prague is undesirable," RFE/RL's Belarusian Service reported on 12 November, citing an unnamed source at NATO headquarters. The source added that if those two leaders make an appearance at the 21-22 November summit, they "will see a lot of empty chairs around them." Minsk maintains that, as a full-fledged member of NATO's Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, Belarus needs no special invitation to attend the summit (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 12 November 2002). Belarusian Foreign Ministry spokesman Paval Latushka told RFE/RL that NATO's approach to the Prague summit betrays NATO's "selective attitude" toward Partnership Council members and "a practice of double standards" in relation to Belarus. AM
UKRAINE REVEALS KOLCHUGA SECRETS. Ukraine's Topaz factory in Donetsk has manufactured 76 Kolchuga radar stations since 1987, when the first was produced, Viktor Medvedchuk, head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, said at a briefing on 12 November, according to RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service. The factory had manufactured 46 Kolchuga stations for the Soviet Defense Ministry by January 1992, and 14 of those units have been located among Ukrainian military units, he said. After January 1992, another 30 stations were produced: 18 for Russia, eight for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, and four for China. In or after 1991, three stations were sold to Ethiopia following modifications. Medvedchuk said the serial numbers of all the radar stations -- aside from the first unit in 1987, which had no serial number -- have been provided to U.S. and British experts. There are 19 Kolchuga stations in Ukraine, he said, and the visiting experts were shown all their locations. "We are talking about top-secret information, but we provided it to [the U.S. and British] experts," Medvedchuk added (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 6 and 11 November 2002). AM
UKRAINE CLAIMS IT STEPPED IN AND HALTED DISCUSSIONS ON SELLING RADAR SYSTEMS TO IRAQ. Ukrainian presidential administration head Viktor Medvedchuk has said the Ukrainian Security Service and the Defense Ministry halted talks between state arms exporter Ukrspetseksport and a Jordanian middleman attempting to buy Kolchuga radar systems for Iraq, Interfax news agency reported on 12 November. According to the report, Medvedchuk recalled that former Ukrspetseksport head Valeriy Malev "really held such unofficial talks, but they were not held at the level of signing protocols, making offers, or concluding deals. The talks concerned a request on the possibility of a sale." As a result, he contended, the Ukrainian state security services, along with the intelligence directorate of the Defense Ministry, intervened and advised Malev to terminate talks with the Jordanian. KR
ROMANIA REJECTS UKRAINIAN CHARGES. In a press release dated 12 November, the Foreign Ministry rejected Ukraine's charges that Bucharest's positions are making it impossible to reach an agreement on the delimitation of the two countries' borders, Mediafax reported. The ministry said Ukraine's allegations that Romania is making territorial demands regarding the Black Sea Serpents Island are untrue, emphasizing that from the beginning of negotiations in 1997 Romania has accepted Ukraine's full sovereignty over the territory inherited from the former Soviet Union. It said only the delimitation of the continental shelf and "economic zones" are at issue, and that in the last round of negotiations held in Kyiv the Ukrainian side refused to address this issue in any way. MS