07 September 2021, Tuesday, 13:38 202

Ukraine Suggests United States Agree On Free Trade Area – Kuleba

Редактор: Daria Zubkova

Ukraine has suggested that the United States agree on the free trade area.

Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba said this on Svoboda Slova [Free Speech] political TV show on the ICTV channel, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

He said that Ukraine, within the framework of the commission on strategic partnership with the United States, before its renewal during the meeting of Presidents Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Joe Biden, initiated the introduction of a visa-free regime between the countries.

"(Former Foreign Minister) Pavlo Klimkin was the co-chairperson of this commission. It was one of the initiatives submitted to the commission, but it did not find further development," he said.

At the same time, according to him, Ukraine continues to raise the question of visa-free travel before its American partners.

"By the way, that concerns Canada and Great Britain as well. With them, we have already made progress in this matter. There are very small steps because the policy of those countries is very conservative, but we continue," he added.

The new Ukraine initiative offered to the American side, according to him, is the introduction of a free trade area.

“We have another initiative that we proposed to the Americans - a free trade zone between Ukraine and the United States,” Kuleba said.

The minister did not tell about the response of the American side to this initiative.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, on September 8, Kuleba will convene the Ukrainian part of the renewed commission on strategic partnership with the United States; while a meeting of the bilateral commission, co-chaired by Kuleba and United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken, is to be held this fall at which it is planned to update the charter of strategic partnership between Ukraine and the United States.

The Foreign Ministry considers it a signal to Russia that the United States will allocate an additional USD 60 million in military aid to Ukraine after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Washington.

The aid includes the purchase of Javelin missile systems by the end of this year.