Viktor Yanukovych on Thursday took the oath of office as Ukraine's fourth president by vowing to keep his country at an equal distance from Moscow and the West.
Yanukovych declared in his inauguration speech that Ukraine would participate in international cooperation as "a nonaligned European state" — signaling a clear break from the policies of his predecessor, Viktor Yushchenko, who alienated Russia by pressing for NATO membership.
But Yanukovych also promised to maintain the good ties that his Ukrainian adversaries built with the West after the 2004 Orange Revolution swept them into power and cost him the presidency.
"Being a bridge between East and West, an integral part of Europe and the former Soviet Union … Ukraine will choose a foreign policy that will … get the most out of the development of equal and mutually advantageous ties with Russia, the European Union, the United States and other countries," he said, according to a transcript posted on his web site.
Yet in a sign of his country's crippling political fragmentation, Yanukovych took his oath in a half-empty parliament after members of Prime
Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's party snubbed the event. Yushchenko also did not attend.
Since scoring a narrow victory in a Feb. 7 runoff vote, Yanukovych has failed to form a new parliamentary coalition to end Ukraine's paralyzing division between the pro-Russian east and pro-European West.
The new president is from the Russian-speaking east, and Moscow has welcomed his victory over Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, whose power base is in the west and who was long reviled by the Kremlin as an icon of the Orange Revolution.
The recent presidential election is still disputed by Tymoshenko.
But President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin skipped Thursday's ceremony in Kiev, despite the fact that the presidents of Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Armenia and Hungary were among 11 heads of state attending, according to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.
Instead, the Kremlin sent State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov and the head of the presidential administration, Sergei Naryshkin.
The European Union sent its new foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, while Washington was represented by National Security Advisor James Jones.
Kiev had sent an invitation for Medvedev to attend, Kommersant Vlast reported earlier this week, citing a Ukrainian Foreign Ministry source.
A Kremlin source said Thursday that Medvedev's absence should not be misinterpreted. "This has no political overtones but is purely a matter of timetables. An inauguration is just a protocol event," the source said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make public comments about the matter.
But the real reason for his absence might be a foreign policy rivalry between Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who have ruled the country in tandem since Medvedev's election in 2008, said Vladislav Belov, an analyst with the Moscow State International Relations Institute.
"If both went, this would be too much. If Medvedev went, this could offend Putin, and if Putin went, this could offend Medvedev," he said.
In another symbolic gesture, Yanukovych announced Thursday that he would make his first foreign trip to Brussels early next week, followed by a visit to Moscow on Friday.
Yanukovych will hold talks with EU leaders in the Belgian capital on Monday, Reuters reported, citing EU sources. He will meet Medvedev in Moscow on March 5, Interfax reported, citing senior Russian officials in Kiev.
But Konstantin Zatulin, first deputy head of the State Duma's CIS Affairs Committee and a member of United Russia, cautioned against drawing any conclusions from the timing of the visits. He pointed out that Yushchenko made his first foreign visit to Moscow — just one day after his inauguration in January 2005 — and declared that Russia would always be a strategic partner of Ukraine.
"That did not hinder him from embarking on those anti-Russian policies that we saw over the past five years," Zatulin said, speaking by telephone from Kiev.
Political tensions remain, with Tymoshenko refusing to step down as prime minister. During a meeting with National Security Advisor Jones on Thursday, she said she hoped cooperation with Washington would continue regardless of the political situation in Ukraine, Interfax reported.
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