Kuchma ceremoniously snubbed at summit

Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma cut a lone figure Nov. 22 when he turned up unwanted at NATO's landmark summit here, with leaders openly snubbing him over claims of illegal arms sales to Iraq.

But despite the cold shoulder, his foreign minister, Anatoly Zlenko, insisted Ukraine still wanted to join the alliance, which agreed to throw open its doors to seven formerly communist nations.

With the United States accusing Kuchma of personally approving the sale of an early-warning radar system to Iraq in breach of U.N. sanctions - a charge he has denied - the president was persona non grata in the Czech capital.

Kuchma turned up for a meeting of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, being held on the level of heads of state and government, only to find himself isolated because the seating arrangements had been changed.

Under alphabetical arrangements in English, he would have been put next to British Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom, and one along from President George W. Bush of the United States.

Instead, seating was arranged according to the French spelling for country names, which meant Kuchma was at the end of the line, with Turkey on one side and nobody on the other.

"He must have felt alone, even completely isolated," a NATO official who was present at the meeting said.

"Nobody greeted him when he arrived, not even the person sitting next to him at the table. He was politely cold-shouldered," the official added, speaking under cover of anonymity.

"He looked a bit embarrassed and certainly well aware of the icy reception arranged for him."

NATO leaders had already made it clear they did not want Kuchma in Prague but could not stop him coming, and he flew in Nov. 21 after the Czechs granted him a visa.

A NATO spokesman said it was up to the chairman of the meeting to decide on seating protocol. "Several leaders had indicated they did not want to be put next to him," the NATO official said.

In this case the chairman of the meeting was NATO Secretary General George Robertson himself, who had said Nov. 21 that "the president of Ukraine knows there is a shadow over him."

Kuchma was the last of the 46 heads of state and government to speak, again according to the alphabetic protocol, by which time many of the leaders had been replaced by their ambassadors.

"However, he gave a very measured speech, acknowledging that Ukraine still had to make progress before belonging to NATO and reaffirming his attachment to the Euro-Atlantic community," the NATO official said.

Kuchma was also cold-shouldered during the official photograph. A place was reserved for him on a far end, ensuring he would probably not make it into most pictures.

Photographers said that, as before, almost no one spoke to him.

The EAPC, of which Ukraine is a member, was set up by NATO in 1997 and now groups the alliance's 19 members with 27 mostly former Soviet partners. The Prague EAPC meeting agreed on an action plan to maintain cooperation between NATO and Ukraine next year.

Later, Zlenko voiced frustration that the arms sale controversy was clouding Ukraine's relations with NATO but insisted it was a temporary problem, and Kiev still wanted to join the alliance.

"We regard this stage as an interim in our relations with NATO. Ukraine is interested in positive development of our political relationship," Zlenko told a news conference.

"Relations have come to the point where we need to compress cooperation into integration."