Ukraine ex-premier willing to return
Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has said she is ready to offer President Viktor Yushchenko an alliance and create a new coalition government.
Tymoshenko told reporters on Wednesday that she would be happy “to sit down with him [Yushchenko] today … and suggest we unite forces and create a new government.”
Yushchenko sacked her government this month, and on Tuesday deputies including Tymoshenko’s loyalists refused to support Yushchenko’s appointment of Yuriy Yekhanurov as prime minister.
Yushchenko planned a new round of talks with party leaders on Wednesday to try to win support for resubmitting Yekhanurov’s candidacy.
Murder investigation
Meanwhile, in another development, the Ukrainian legislative commission investigating the kidnapping and beheading of a journalist five years ago has issued its findings, accusing parliament’s speaker of instigating the killing.
Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn had “instigated the abduction” of Heorhiy Gongadze, said the commission, led by Hrihoriy Omelchenko.
Gongadze, an internet journalist who wrote about high-level corruption, was kidnapped and killed in 2000.
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Kuchma was allegedly involved in |
The commission’s findings stemmed from recordings in which voices resembling those of Lytvyn, former president Leonid Kuchma and other officials are heard, allegedly conspiring against Gongadze, according to a report posted on a parliamentary website on Wednesday.
Kuchma has repeatedly questioned the authenticity of the tapes, secretly recorded by his former bodyguard.
In the report, Omelchenko’s commission said that the “authenticity of tapes has been verified” and that all findings had been forwarded to prosecutors and the State Security service.