Page 14 - bne IntelliNews weekly newspaper June 23

Eastern Europe
June 23, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 14
Ukraine sees "strong support" from US, Poroshenko says after Trump meeting
bne IntelliNews
The Ukrainian leadership has received “strong support” from the US, the war-torn country’s president, Petro Poroshenko, told journalists after talks with President Donald Trump in the White House on June 20.
The meeting was their first after Trump’s victory in last year’s presidential election. Kyiv, which openly supported Hillary Clinton during the race, was anx- ious that Trump’s election could weaken Washing- ton’s political, diplomatic and financial support to Ukraine in favour of Russia, with whom it mired in conflict over the latter’s annexation of Crimea and its military support for rebels in the war in the east.
“We received strong support... of sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of our state, as well as support in the continuation of reforms in Ukraine,” Poroshenko’s media office quoted the president as saying. “The agenda [of the talks] was really broad. I am fully satisfied with the results of the negotiations and grateful to President Trump, Vice President [Mike] Pence and the Secretaries I met for their very strong support of our state.”
The Poroshenko-Trump meeting was originally described by the White House as a brief “drop-in”, media reports said on June 20. However, the two presidents posed for photographs in the Oval Of- fice and made brief remarks following Poroshen- ko’s more extensive meetings with Vice President Pence and the administration’s top national secu- rity advisers.
Petro Poroshenko came out of his meeting with Donald Trump confident of US support.
The Ukrainian leader’s visit to Washington took place against a background of moves to expand US sanctions against Russia. US authorities on June 20 added to the sanctions list new individu- als, officials and companies allegedly involved with the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, and in fuelling the ongoing conflict in the Donbas region.
White House Spokesman Sean Spicer confirmed during Poroshenko’s visit that the Trump adminis- tration views Russia as an aggressor in Donbas. Trump said during the meeting it was a “great honour” to meet Poroshenko and that “a lot of progress has been made” in the US relationship with Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s president told reporters that the agenda of the meeting was “really broad” and noted the US support in the continuation
of reforms in all sectors, including the energy sphere. He also informed that the parties discussed economic cooperation, particularly
in the sphere of nuclear energy, oil and gas, purchases of American coal, continued cooperation on renewable energy sources.
The parties also discussed Ukraine-US coopera- tion in the military-technical sphere, Poroshenko’s media office added. “The president [Trump]gave clear instruction to expand our cooperation,” Poroshenko underlined.