- Comment
- From Frances - Canada
- 11-5-2
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- What kind of idiots run the US and UK anyhow?? Don't
they know you can't prove a negative??? If you didn't do something, you
can't prove it - only if you DID do it, might you be able to prove it.
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- The US should have to prove that Ukraine did it and if
Ukraine has no other explanation or alibi (as in court) only then is it
possible they are guilty.
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- By Pavel Polityuk
- 11-5-2
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- KIEV (Reuters) - U.S. and
British experts have criticized Ukraine for failing to provide conclusive
proof it did not sell an aircraft detection system to Iraq in breach of
U.N. sanctions, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday.
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- A spokesman for Ukraine's parliamentary speaker, Volodymyr
Lytvyn, said he had seen a report on the U.S. charges that Ukraine had
sold Iraq a "Kolchuga" early warning system that concluded the
ex-Soviet state had not proved its innocence.
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- The report was quickly criticized as "impertinent"
by one parliamentarian.
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- Once-warm relations between the West and the government
of President Leonid Kuchma have slumped since Washington said it had authenticated
part of a tape of conversations in which the veteran leader is heard authorizing
the system's sale.
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- Ukrainian officials have cast doubt on the tapes, saying
they had checked copies and concluded they had been edited.
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- But Washington stopped some funding and sent a group
of 13 experts to check whether the Kolchuga -- which could complicate any
U.S.-led military strike on Baghdad -- was in Iraq. The report was handed
over to officials earlier on Tuesday.
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- "The main idea in this report is that Ukraine did
not present convincing evidence to prove that the country had not sold
a Kolchuga to Iraq," the spokesman said after Lytvyn met Foreign Minister
Anatoly Zlenko and British Ambassador Robert Brinkley.
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- Ukrainian news agencies quoted Lytvyn as saying Washington
was seeking further answers to its questions and interviews with other
officials.
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- "IMPERTINENT" REPORT
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- Georgy Kryuchkov, head of a parliamentary committee on
national security and defense, blasted the report, saying Ukraine should
be treated as innocent until proven guilty.
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- "This report is simply impertinent. There exists
an understanding in the world -- the presumption of innocence. Ukraine
should not have to prove that it did not sell (arms), those who accuse
the country should prove it did," Kryuchkov was quoted by Interfax-Ukraine
as saying.
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- "It is not possible to prove what did not happen."
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- Earlier a relaxed-looking Kuchma, under mounting pressure
over the charges and opposition calls for his resignation, again denounced
the allegations as baseless, saying they would not stop him pursuing his
dream of Ukraine joining NATO one day.
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- "I dismiss the logic that some kinds of suspicions,
which are not founded, can destroy the process of cooperation between Ukraine
and NATO," Kuchma told a meeting with defense officials.
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- He vowed Ukraine would "survive the temporary difficulties
in relations with the alliance." He urged officials to start cutting
the size of Ukraine's army to make it affordable for the country and able
to meet NATO requirements.
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- Kuchma has also expressed a desire to press for European
Union membership, but EU officials have ruled that out for the time being.
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