07 June 2010, 14:22
Mykola Tomenko: Non-Aligned Status of Ukraine should be reinforced by Withdrawal of Foreign Military Units from the Territory of Ukraine at least by 2017
Mykola Tomenko, Deputy Chairman of The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, forwarded several motions to the bill "On Fundamentals of Domestic and Foreign Policy" submitted by the President of Ukraine and adopted in the first reading.
M.Tomenko singled out the amendment to chapter "fundamentals of domestic policy in the humanitarian sector." To harmonize the fundamentals of domestic and foreign policy, he offered the following clear-cut version of item 1 of article 10: "implementation of the state language policy on the grounds of the Constitution of Ukraine and the Laws of Ukraine, provision of comprehensive development and functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state one in all the domains of public life in Ukraine, guarantee of unrestricted development, use and protection of Russian and other languages of the national minorities of Ukraine", which complies with Clause 10 of the Constitution of Ukraine.
The Deputy Chairman of The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine stresses that the status of the state language shall not be doubted at the sitting of the National Security and Defence Council under the chairmanship of the President. "This constitutional provision shall be reinforced in the bill "On Fundamentals of Domestic and Foreign Policy", he stated. He supposes that it will become an important voting "to testify whether the status of the Ukrainian language as the state one would be maintained."
The Deputy Chairman singled out the second important amendment concerning disposition of the military units of foreign States in the territory of Ukraine. M.Tomenko objects to the idea of a non-aligned status, however, he believes that it will be supported in the second reading. "Judging from the active support of this bill in the first reading, the ideology of Ukraine as a non-aligned country is apparently a strategy to be supported in the second reading", he stated. "Therefore, the non-aligned status should be harmonized with the provision that a non-aligned country shall not have military units of a foreign state in its territory", M.Tomenko stated. He suggested supplementing Clause 11 of "the fundamentals of foreign policy" with the following phrase: "non-admissibility of disposition of foreign military units in the territory of Ukraine, withdrawal of foreign military units from the territory of Ukraine by 2017."