Interview by Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Kostyantyn Gryshchenko for CNN International (13 May 2004).

Q.: Foreign Minister, many thanks for joining us. Let me ask you, first of all, what were your thoughts when the Ukrainian parliament was stormed because of the Iraqi issue. Is it deliberation or is it actually indicative of many Ukrainians` feeling it's time to get out of Iraq?

A.: Well, it does happen from time to time in the Parliament that the political forces try to block the work of the Parliament to press for the review of the issues that are important to them. But it's clearly deliberation of democratic process. Issue of our continuous stay in Iraq is an important and very emotional in Ukraine, clearly.

On the one hand - and that is the position of the Government - we need to be together with the international community, with those who have decided to be proactive in fighting terrorism.

Q.: Ok. So there are no plans to pull out. What about reducing the numbers of Ukrainian troops in Iraq? Any plans to do that?

A.: There are no plans to reduce them, simply because a reduced contingent will not be as efficient and will be more vulnerable to attacks if they will reappear on a wider scale. We believe that all the members of our contingents are… not believe but that's a fact, they are volunteers who know what to do and how to do.

Q.: What is the attitude of your country to thе deliberate tactic to target politically more vulnerable countries of the US coalition? It's happened to Poles, it's happened to Ukrainians and to the Italians as well.

A.: We understand that being in Iraq brings with itself serious dangers and serious threats. But we do have high level of sustainability and support. The troops are well-motivated. They know what to do. What is important is that the decisions by coalition headquarters are taking into account all the factors. For example, in our sector of responsibility for almost a year we never had any serious incidents. We had excellent relations with local population, with families, with leaders. And then after certain decisions and certain actions in Baghdad we had a major violence which we never again were appraised of. This kind of better interaction is very important for us together to be more efficient in Iraq.

Q.: Let me ask you about the abuse pictures at the Abu Graib prison… All we see that it was a sense of outrage across the world. What do you think?

A.: It is clearly an outrage and a major negative factor today for the safety of the troops like the American troops and also major challenge for the United States to deal with this issue. We understand that the reaction is exactly what it should be - bringing to justice those who are responsible but making sure that it doesn't send the wrong message that it is a policy of the United States or of the coalition to condone such behavior.

In that respect we also have certain concerns because we do have two Ukrainian prisoners in the same prison that were under very dubious circumstances sentenced by Iraqi, if we may put it this way, court for bringing oil out of the country from year ago.

They are old. They need medical assistance. And we believe that it is urgent to bring them home to serve their sentence if needed in Ukrainian prison. That is an additional factor that weights very heavily in today's discussion in Parliament as well as in society in general.

Thank you very much for joining us.