Yushchenko: Ukraine to Vote on EU Status

KIEV, Ukraine -- President Viktor Yushchenko said Thursday Ukrainians will decide in referendums whether the former Soviet republic should try to join the European Union and NATO.

But Yushchenko, who has made it a priority to move the Ukraine toward the West, did not say when the voting would be held. The EU and NATO have said Ukraine has considerable work to do before a membership bid could be considered.

Yushchenko made clear he favored using referendums to determine whether to join both groups during a TV call-in show marking 100 days in office.

"The forming of a national position regarding such issues as membership in the EU is an issue that will be decided exclusively through a referendum," Yushchenko said.

Yushchenko, who won a court-ordered presidential repeat vote last year after mass protests over fraud dubbed the "Orange Revolution," stressed Ukraine must maintain good relations with its giant neighbor Russia despite seeking the economic benefits of EU membership.

"We need strategic relations with Russia and with the European Union and both are mutually connected," Yushchenko said.

Yushchenko, responding to grumbling about his fledgling administration, urged Ukrainians calling from four cities to have patience, saying three three months wasn't enough time to make sweeping changes.

Ukrainians had gathered in downtown squares in Kiev, Lviv, Simferopol and Donetsk to complain directly to Yushchenko about social problems. They also called in and sent e-mails with complaints and requests.

"Arm yourself with patience," Yushchenko said. "Let's allow the new government to work."

He pledged that his team "will not bury its head in the sand," will admit its mistakes and pledged his economic policy seeks to improve the lives of all of Ukraine's 48 million people from "the pregnant mother to the oldest retiree."

His presidency so far has brought an increase in pensions and raised Ukraine's international profile, but Ukrainians are also grumbling over currency changes and and rising inflation.

The opposition has alleged political persecution, and the business community has been rattled by the review of some post-Soviet privatization deals that Yushchenko's government claims gave valuable state businesses to Kuchma's cronies at rock-bottom prices.

First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoliy Kinakh said Thursday that the government wants to review the privatizations of 29 companies _ far below the thousands that some investors had feared.

Yushchenko repeated allegations that billions were stolen by the previous regime, and said that the alleged thefts had to be investigated.

He also demanded that property on nature reserves along the Black Sea where many wealthy tycoons built their homes illegally during the ruler of his predecessor Leonid Kuchma be returned to the state within two months.

Source: AP