Bush To Host Ukraine President Sept 29

WASHINGTON, DC -- US President George W. Bush will welcome Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko on September 29 for talks in the wake of Russia's war with Georgia, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Thursday.

US President George Bush will welcome Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko on Monday, Sep. 29.
"The president and President Yushchenko will discuss how to reinforce democracy, security and national sovereignty in Ukraine and throughout the region and steps to advance Ukraine's efforts to integrate into the Euro-Atlantic community," Perino told reporters.

Yushchenko on Wednesday rejected Russian pressure to prevent his country from joining NATO.

"It is essential to turn down blackmailing and threatening vocabulary," he told the UN General Assembly in New York.

Without ever naming Russia, Yushchenko also condemned "all acts of aggression and the use of force that occurred in the region."

He was apparently referring to both Georgia's recent offensive against separatists in its breakaway enclave of South Ossetia and the ensuing Russian military intervention there to dislodge Georgian troops.

"Ukraine vigorously denounces the violation of the territorial integrity and inviolability of the Georgian borders and armed annexation of its territory," the Ukrainian leader said.

"Ukraine does not recognize the independence of the self-proclaimed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia (and) condemns the endeavor of the illegitimate and separatist affirmation of the statehood of any territories," he added.

Russia has opposed NATO entry for Georgia and Ukraine, saying that NATO expansion and its support of a planned US anti-missile system in the Czech Republic and Poland is a "strategic error."

Analysts have said Ukraine could be next in Moscow's sights should it decide to flex more than diplomatic muscles in its former Soviet sphere of influence, amid fears over the maintenance of stable gas supplies to the European Union.

Source: AFP