WASHINGTON - US President George W. Bush will welcome Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko to the White House early next month for talks aimed at deepening "strategic" ties, both countries said Friday.
Bush will welcome Yushchenko, who bested Moscow's favorite in presidential elections late last year, to Washington on April 4 for talks and a working lunch, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said in a statement.
Ukraine Foreign Minister Boris Tarasyuk said in Washington that Yushchenko would seek US help in joining NATO and the World Trade Organization and would discuss Ukraine's hope for "friendly relations" with its neighbors -- an oblique reference to Russia.
Tarasyuk, on his own maiden official trip to the United States, said at the National Press Club that Yushchenko hoped to promote "the development of truly strategic partnership with the United States of America."
McClellan said the leaders would discuss "how Ukraine and the United States can intensify our work as strategic partners on a broad range of issues, including supporting the advance of freedom and democracy in eastern Europe and the broader Middle East, and cooperating on nonproliferation."
Bush also hopes to hear about plans to deepen democratic and free-market reforms in Ukraine and will discuss "integrating Ukraine with the global economy," said McClellan.
Tarasyuk said he had met with US lawmakers to ask them to lift trade and investment restrictions on Ukraine under the so-called Jackson-Vanik amendment, a Cold War era provision which blocked the Soviet Union from getting privileged trading status for severely limiting Jewish emigration.
Republican US Senator John McCain, a former presidential hopeful, has committed to do just that.
The Ukrainian diplomat also said that Ukraine's hopes to join the European Union did not mean Kiev would turn its back completely on Russia, its second trade parter after Europe.
He noted that the pro-Western Yushchenko, who bested Moscow's favored candidate in elections late last year, had visited Russia hours after his inauguration.
Yuschenko's defeat of pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovich over three rounds of presidential elections has come to be known as the peaceful "orange revolution" -- one Bush frequently touts when he lists global moves towards democracy.
"Viktor Yushchenkos election as President of Ukraine represented a victory for democracy and a landmark event in the history of liberty," McClellan said in his statement.
Yushchenko was poisoned with dioxin during the campaign, damaging his health and covering his photogenic, youthful face with pustules.
The Washington Post on Friday quoted a US State Department official as saying the United States had helped a team of US doctors meet with Yushchenko in Vienna to diagnose and treat the disease.
However, Tarasyuk said he had not seen the article and would he confirm any part of it. He said he would speak with State Department officials about it before leaving Washington.
03/11/2005 19:50 GMT