Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 16, 1990 TAG: 9007160260
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/2 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MOSCOW LENGTH: Medium
The Ukraine is the Soviet Union's second-largest republic, with more than 50 million people. It also is a key industrial and farming region.
The republic's Parliament, meeting in the capital of Kiev, declared the "supremacy, independence, absolute authority and indivisibility" of Ukrainian authority on the republic's territory, Tass said.
But the news agency added that the majority of deputies who spoke during the Supreme Soviet's debate did not support secession from the Soviet Union.
Instead, they said, sovereignty "should not break the existing social, economic and cultural and other ties with republics, but develop them," Tass said.
In its declaration, the Ukraine followed the lead of the huge Russian republic, the Baltic republics, and several other Soviet republics clamoring for more independence from the central government.
Some Ukrainian nationalists support total independence for their republic, but the movement is not as far advanced as it is in other Soviet republics like the Baltics.
Today's declaration called for the Ukraine's "independence and equal rights in external relations," and stated that the republic has the right to have its own armed forces, Tass said.
Now, the Ukraine's youth cannot perform military service outside the republic without Parliament's permission.
The declaration sets a future goal of establishing a "constantly neutral government, which does not take part in military blocs" and opposes the production, proliferation and use of nuclear weapons, Tass said.
by CNB