Former ambassador: Ukraine didn’t give permission to declassifying Trump-Zelensky phone call
Former Ukrainian Ambassador to the US Valeriy Chaly confirmed to the LB.ua in an interview that Ukraine has not agreed to declassify the transcripts of the phone calls between US President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.
“If Ukraine agrees to publish the relevant phone call, according to procedure, it must agree to declassify it… Phone calls have a certain restricted access. In the US, it’s very closely regulated, you saw an example of this in the last scandal, in which it was top secret. Ukraine also has its own procedural aspects, which I cannot disclose. I know for sure: in order to give consent for publication, the documents must first be completely declassified. There are additional aspects, when a transcript is involved (as happened with Trump and Zelensky’s phone calls). However, as far as I understand, no procedures have been carried out in Ukraine. And no one has officially given consent to the US to publish it,” Chaliy said.
The former ambassador pointed out that Zelensky has confirmed publicly that he has not given his consent for the transcripts to be published.
Chaliy also noted that, in July, when former NSDC Secretary Oleksandr Danylyuk and presidential aide Andriy Yermak visited Washington, Danylyuk told Chaliy that “the approaches are different now, and work will be carried out directly, without the embassy, and the task of the department itself is to provide service, that is, to engage in effectively logistical matters”.
“Since that moment, neither I nor the embassy have continued to engage in matters of intergovernmental dialog between Ukraine and the US on the highest level,” the former ambassador noted.