Category Nation/CIS
Source RosBusinessConsulting

KIEV — Ukraine’s ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko said she was ready to head the country’s new government, she told reporters today. Tymoshenko was sacked by President Viktor Yushchenko earlier this month. “I can see that our relations are returning to status quo,” she said.

“I offer Yushchenko go one year back and unite our forces and our strategies and form a government. This should be a strong government, a coalition government,” Tymoshenko noted.

She said she had passed those proposals to the president through state secretary Oleg Rybachuk but there was no reply, and she decided to address Yushchenko through the mass media.

“In his criticism of the government, the President is driven solely by his emotions, and those emotions must be stopped. All repressive measures against me and my team are based on compromising materials collected during Leonid Kuchma’s regime,” the ex-premier said.

Earlier, Rybachuk had said Yushchenko had offered Tymoshenko to form a new government but she refused. Tymoshenko denied this.

On Tuesday, Ukraine’s parliament rejected the candidacy of Yuri Yekhanurov for prime minister. Yekhanurov, who was nominated by Yushchenko, won 223 votes, against 226 needed for approval. He was not supported by Communists, the Social and Democratic Party and some other parties.

In the latest twist of Ukraine’ political crisis, the parliament backed a request by deputy Vasily Potapov from the Regions of Ukraine party asking the prosecutor general, the security service and the interior ministry to investigate allegations of Yushchenko’s involvement in financial crimes in the 1990s, including thefts from the Ukraina Bank, abuse of power and other wrongdoings during his term as head of the National Bank of Ukraine.