MEMORANDUM Of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Lately the issue of Ukraine's nuclear policy and in particular of Ukraine's accession to the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons NPT elicits increasingly keen interest in many countries of the world They often cast doubt on Ukraine's commitment to join the NPT and ratify the START Treaty At the same time they voice a threat that certain states would be prepared to halt all programs of economic cooperation including provision of aid and tariff preferences with any state that undermines the NPT and note that this concerns Ukraine In the opinion of the Ministry concerns voiced with regard to Ukraine's nuclear policy are caused by insufficient understanding of the respective state governments about Ukraine's nuclear policy The position of Ukraine regarding these issues is the following First Ukraine declared its intention to become in the future a non-nuclear state in the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine of July 16 1990 and confirmed it in the Statement of the Verkhovna Rada of October 24 1991 and the Resolution of the Verkhovna Rada of April 9 1992 In fulfillment of these political documents Ukraine announced its intention to join the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons NPT as a non-nuclear weapons state and conclude a safeguards agreement with the IAEA The President of Ukraine exercising his right of legislative initiative introduced to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine a bill on the ratification the Treaty on Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms and accession to the NPT Second In support of the IAEA's activity directed at establishing comprehensive safeguards to ensure nonproliferation of nuclear weapons the Minister of foreign affairs of Ukraine in September of this year sent a letter to the Secretary General of the Agency conveying Ukraine's willingness to put under respective IAEA safeguards all nuclear facilities on its territory and under its jurisdiction In October of this year IAEA technical experts already visited Chernobyl and Rivne nuclear power plants visits to other nuclear facilities in Ukraine are planned for early next year Ukraine's accession to the NPT demands inter alia efforts toward the creation of the national system of accounting control and physical security of nuclear materials a database of nuclear facilities and training of respective experts In Ukraine this works must commence practically from zero and requires a certain amount of time and support from other states Third In a more general fundamental regard Ukraine views its accession to the NPT not as a simple political declaration but intends to ensure that the Treaty's coming-into-effect for Ukraine coincides with the resolution of all issues relating to the dismantlement of the nuclear weapons on its territory Ukraine's situation in regard to the nuclear weapons deployed on its territory is unique and has no precedents in history At the moment of the collapse of the former USSR at least four From the Nunn-Lugar collection of the National Security Archive Unfortunately the content of official inquiries from the embassies of some states in Kyiv as well as reports in foreign mass media suggest that Ukraine's position on these issues is often distorted states Belarus Kazakhstan the Russian Federation and Ukraine had an undeniable right to be considered nuclear states as equal successor states of the Soviet Union Nuclear weapons situated on their territories have been subordinated in accordance with the Almaty Agreement to the Joint Command of the Strategic Forces of the CIS In accordance with the Lisbon protocol Ukraine undertakes responsibility for dismantlement of strategic offensive arms deployed on its territory including their nuclear components Without resolving the issue of how exactly and within what timeframe all nuclear weapons in Ukraine would be eliminated Ukraine cannot consider that there already exist the legal economic and technical conditions for Ukraine to fulfill its commitments under the NPT It is precisely in this key that these issues are being considered in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine where the deputies are currently holding hearings on Ukraine's accession to the NPT Fourth Ukraine is currently going through a process normal for any democratic state when its Parliament deliberates all aspects of the NPT and analyses all possible consequences of joining this Treaty for Ukraine's military nuclear and ecological security as well as the impact of this decision on the state of the economy and general stability in the society It is also analyzing financial consequences of implementing the NPT and START Concomitantly the Verkhovna Rada is considering such vital issues as the adoption of the new Constitution confronting the economic crisis and many other issues upon which the very existence of the Ukrainian State depends The President and the Government of Ukraine propose to consider the issue of START ratification and NPT accession as a priority however the Verkhovna Rada must decide for itself where this issue falls in comparison with other urgent problems that populate the agenda of the Ukrainian Parliament Fifth At times we hear an assertion that Ukraine can sign the NPT without any prior legal procedures This assertion is erroneous since Ukraine cannot sign and respectively ratify the NPT The term for these procedures provided for in the Treaty has long since expired Ukraine can only accede to the NPT in accordance with its constitutional procedure fil tlh We also sometimes hear a concern with regard to Ukraine's demand for establishing international control over the withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Ukraine to Russia This pertains to the control over dismantlement and elimination of nuclear warheads which in accordance with the bilateral agreement with Russia Ukraine is already exercising at respective Russian facilities with the aim of preventing the use of nuclear materials extracted from the warheads for repeated use in the manufacture of nuclear weapons If we manage to reach an agreement about a fair compensation to Ukraine for the nuclear materials contained in tactical nuclear warheads withdrawn from its territory Ukraine intends to agree that the dismantlement of the nuclear warheads of strategic offensive arms which remain on its territory be carried out in Russia At the same time Ukraine will insists that those procedures of control that applied to the dismantlement and elimination of tactical warheads also apply to strategic warheads From the Nunn-Lugar collection of the National Security Archive Ukraine as a state that has no intention to possess nuclear weapons consistently pursues policies not to acquire control of nuclear explosive devices in accordance with Article II of the NPT however it undeniably has property rights to all components of nuclear warheads both strategic deployed on its territory and tactical withdrawn in Spring 1992 for dismantlement and elimination to Russia Seventh Ukraine repeatedly proposed to its partners to commence negotiations toward reaching an agreement on allocating limits and restrictions of strategic offensive arms stipulated by the START Treaty for the former Soviet Union which in accordance with Article II of the Lisbon Protocol must be agreed upon by Belarus Kazakhstan the Russian Federation and Ukraine These negotiations are yet to take place however the Ministry hopes that the latest proposal advanced in this regard by the Ukrainian side will allow to commence such negotiations with the Russian Federation in the nearest future Ukraine must carry out multibillion ruble programs of elimination of strategic offensive arms ensure their nuclear security as well as social rehabilitation and employment of those who are carrying out active military duty in connection with these arms this is not only a social problem but also a problem of nuclear security Toward this Ukraine received not a cent from other countries We get an impression that Ukraine is expected to single-handedly shoulder all material expenses associated with the elimination of missile-nuclear arsenals as well as the risk of ecological catastrophe in case of possible accidents all this against the background of the crisis that is currently afflicting its economy In connection with this the Ukrainian side would be grateful if Ukraine were offered some real aid in their nuclear arsenals elimination_ It should be taken into account that strategic nuclear arms deployed in Ukraine constitute a threat not only in term of their direct use but also ecological threat to Ukraine and the entire world Ninth The Ministry is always available to provide in a timely manner to the embassies accredited in Ukraine the necessary explanations regarding Ukraine's position on the accession to the NPT and the ratification of the START Treaty as well as those regarding the more general issues of maintaining international security and disarmament the contents of statements by the Minister of foreign affairs and other members of the Ukrainian Government The Ministry has instructed Ukrainian embassies to establish a permanent liaison on these issues with the ministries of foreign affairs of their resident country and expects that similar instructions would be also received by the foreign embassies in Ukraine Kyiv December 11 1992 From the Nunn-Lugar collection of the National Security Archive Ei9 b1 1 Ukraine is not responsible for the decisions that led to the deployment by the former Soviet Union of world's third largest strategic nuclear formation of intercontinental ballistic missiles to its territory However instead of tangible assistance in the elimination of ICBMs and their warheads it receives only 'negative' stimuli to get it to join the NPT and eliminate nuclear weapons