Security and Non-proliferation, issue 6(18)

Dear readers!
A space of three years is topping off since due to the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate (SKI) support we have started issuing the journal Security and Nonproliferation. For this, at a glance, a small period of time a lot of events both in the international arena and in our country occurred. Despite all difficulties Ukraine is forging ahead to be an inalienable part of international community. Thus, current world problems and trends influence by some means or other on what occurring in our country. On the other hand, we would like to hope that the "orange revolution" as the main "internal" event of the contemporary history of the independent Ukraine made its positive contribution in global processes.
Notwithstanding varying interpretations given by different political forces of our country to those events of autumn 2004 – winter 2005, which for a long period of time were at the top-news of news agencies in the world, perhaps, the only thing where opinions of political opponents coincide is appreciation of freedom of the press as a fundamental achievement of the "orange revolution".
It is real freedom of the press, under the lack of which possibility to build a civil society is out of the question, that is directly connected with the topics we have continuously paid attention to on the pages of Security and Nonproliferation, namely, strengthening civil control over and role of civil experts in the security sector of state policy, influence of civil society and non-governmental organizations on state policy in the realm of WMD nonproliferation and export control, transparency of state authorities activities in the field of arms trade and military-technical cooperation, etc.
And it looked symbolical that when preparing this issue, which was closing in the three years cycle of our activities, we had in Kyiv an important international event. On 12 December 2006 in the conference hall of Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine the international round-table meeting devoted to the topic "The Role of the Public in Issues of Nonproliferation and Export Control in Ukraine". The next day, the majority of the participants of the round-table discussion took part in the informal exchange of opinions with regard to the progress of the Global Partnership projects for Ukraine. Co-organizers of the both events were the state authorities of Sweden (SKI) and Ukraine (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and State Service of Export Control), as well as the Ukrainian NGO – Scientific and Technical Center of Export and Import on the Export and Import of Special Technologies, Hardware and Materials.
From the Ukrainian side the representatives of the executive authorities – the State Nuclear Regulatory Committee, Ministry of Fuel and Energy, Ministry for Emergencies, Security Service of Ukraine, Ministry of Internal Affairs, scientific institutions of the National Security and Defense Council and National Academy of Sciences, non-governmental analytical centers and mass media. A great interest in these discussions was revealed by the IAEA, EC, state authorities and NGOs representing Sweden, Finland, Great Britain and U.S. It is not coincidence that the majority of participants took part in the both events. Actually, interconnection between them was clearly formulated by one of the foreign participants in the epigrammatic statement: "Transparency – it is reputation, and reputation – it is investments". In other words, enhancing the role of civil society ensures more transparency in state authorities' activities, their responsibilities and reliability, and this, in its turn, creates favorable conditions for the foreign investments, including those in the security sector. A lot of participants expressed their opinions that the fresh impetus on the route of solving the problems of WMD nonproliferation regimes could be given due to development of civil society elements including specialized nongovernmental analytical, research and training centers, print and electron media, etc.
Besides, when closing the second-day discussion, it was Ukrainians' pleasure to hear from the foreign participants about the absolutely free exchange of ideas occurred, that was impossible previously. And we hope, this is the best guarantee that ultimately everything will be OK with Ukraine...
Sergiy Kondratov

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