KYIV. May 20 (Interfax) - Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov believes that the Ukrainian authorities' decision to cancel visas for U.S. and European Union citizens in 2005 was a naive expectation of reciprocal concessions.
"A government should never agree to unilateral concessions, especially when we were not asked for this! Neither the U.S. nor the EU asked Ukraine for the cancelation of visas for their citizens," Azarov said on Facebook on Friday.
Azarov recalled that Ukraine made the decision to cancel visas for EU and U.S. citizens after the Orange Revolution in 2005. "It is a rare occasion in diplomatic practice for a party to make concessions."
"But there were a lot of expectations that the countries whom we made concessions take reciprocal steps in a short period of time," he said.
"This was a naive expectation on the part of the then authorities. Eight years have passed since then, and only now have we reached an agreement with the EU on liberalizing visa procedures," Azarov said.