"ADDRESS by Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine A.Zlenko at the GUUAM-U.S. meeting (Yalta, July 3, 2003)

Dear colleagues,

At the outset, let me warmly welcome our American friends to the Yalta forum this year.

I am particularly pleased that GUUAM-US meetings have become traditional at summits and other meetings of our Group.

Today we can assert with confidence that relations between GUUAM and the U.S. have attained a high level of understanding and cooperation.

Such cooperation was and remains to be one of important aspects of the Group activities.

I think that we have all reasons to expect our dialogue to be further intensifying and extending to new areas of our interaction.

The reason for my assessment is obvious:

We are united by consolidated approaches not only in dealing with important issues of GUUAM activity, but also with a wide range of global issues.

Especially in assessing economic and security process on the post Soviet area and the continent in the whole.

I'd like to take this opportunity to confirm our support for combating terrorism, preventing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and confronting other global challenges.

We feel responsible for enhancing regional and global security and maintaining sustainable economic development in the GUUAM Participating States and the region.

It is not an easy task to be accomplished, though we are confident that to reach this goal without appropriate cooperation with the US would have been even more difficult.

In this view, implementation of the 'Framework GUUAM-US Program' has become of a particular importance.

We highly appreciate the U.S. readiness to provide political, consultative and financial assistance for implementation of the projects envisioned by the Program.

In practical terms, we hope that with the U.S. support GUUAM will be able to foster multilateral interaction with a view of harmonizing and unifying our national legislation in these areas.

This also relates to planning and conducting joint operational activities, education, professional training for personnel and modernizing our technical control equipment.

We will also welcome further practical interaction with the United States in the areas of the establishment of the GUUAM Free Trade Zone, transportation, science and technology, customs cooperation, enhancing border control, emergency preparedness and disaster relief.

Agreements to be signed at this Summit will play a pivotal role in advancing our cooperation within the GUUAM-US dialogue.

First of all, this is the Memorandum of Understanding of GUUAM Participating States on the Project on Trade and Transportation Facilitation.

Practical work to implement our agreements in this field will be taken almost immediately, starting from September 1.

In this context, we consider these efforts as a part of our comprehensive involvement to forge common European economic area and develop transcontinental transportation network.

In this regard, it is our explicit interest and even necessity to interact with other regional organizations and initiatives that carry out the same projects in their regions.

I cannot but stress on importance of establishing close relations with Southeast European Cooperative Initiative (SECI) that could be instrumental in implementing GUUAM projects more effectively.

We are certainly aware that tangible assistance of the American side would to a major part facilitate brining all these ideas into life. Secondly, I wish to particularly touch upon Agreement on the Establishment of the GUUAM Virtual Center on combating terrorism, organized crime, drug trafficking, and other forms of dangerous crimes.

The Virtual Center activity and implementation of the project of Interstate Information-Analytical System of GUUAM Participating States give our Group ample opportunities to increase its effectiveness with a view to maintaining security in the region.

In this context, I wish to point out our great potential in forging common security area on the continent.

The same project is being carried out within the SECI that gives us grounds to talk about a necessity of combining our efforts in this field.

However, to my mind, that would be rather one-sided to confine our cooperation with the US in this field only to receiving assistance of the American side.

I am confident that GUUAM may become not only a recipient of assistance, but also a contributor of efforts the United States put to fight terrorism, drug trafficking, and confront other challenges to stability and security in the vicinity to our borders.

I think that GUUAM as a regional group is able to make its feasible contribution to international antiterrorism coalition and efforts being undertaken in the Middle East to maintain stability in the region.

GUUAM Participating States is more than a year providing practical assistance to stabilization forces in Afghanistan. Recently we embarked on our common goal to bring stabilization and security to Iraq.

I think that the flexible format of cooperation within the Group allows us to scrutinize possibilities to employ the GUUAM instruments, when considering the issue of our joint contribution to this kind of efforts of international community.

Dear colleagues,

I believe that we witness the process of gradual fostering GUUAM as a mechanism of maintaining sustainable development in the region. Cooperation with the United States in this area is a significant element contributing to exploring this mechanism more comprehensively and effectively.

I hope that willingness of both sides - GUUAM and the USA - to move forward on this issue will correspond to our common goal to promote regional cooperation.

Thank you for your attention."