Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said Kiev will not recognize the former Georgian republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia despite improving ties with Russia.
"There are international norms. In line with the international law and standards any violation of [territorial] integrity or a state is forbidden," Yanukovych said at a news conference on Friday.
"We have no right to salute these processes in the world where the integrity of a state is violated and moreover to acknowledge this. I have never recognized this," the Ukrainian president said.
Russia recognized the former Georgian republics as independent shortly after its war with Georgia in August 2008, but Yanukovych, who has pursued a pro-Russian foreign policy since taking office in February, stressed that he had never said that he would do so.
"I have never acknowledged the legacy of the actions that violate the integrity of the borders of a state," he said, adding that he has been always against the double standards involved when the independence of Kosovo was recognized by some states.
Before Yanukovych's victory in the February's polls, however, his Party of Regions called on outgoing President Viktor Yushchenko's administration to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
South Ossetia and Abkhazia broke away from Georgia in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia recognized their independence after a five-day war with Georgia in August 2008 that began when Georgian forces attacked South Ossetia in an attempt to bring it back under central control. Only Nicaragua, Venezuela and the tiny Pacific island state of Nauru have followed suit.
Many experts believe that a decision by Ukraine to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia will create a question over the sovereignty of Crimea, which has a predominantly Russian-speaking population.
The peninsula was made part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954 by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and currently hosts Russia's Black Sea Fleet.
KIEV, June 4 (RIA Novosti)
