Ukraine president: EU should stop meddling

A woman holds a portrait of jailed Ukrainian opposition leader and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko during a rally of opposition supporters yesterday in Kiev in front of the government headquarters.

Reuters/AFP/Kiev

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said the European Union should stop meddling in the fate of his rival, former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, and said her imprisonment should not hinder Kiev’s integration with Europe.

Pouring scorn on the woman who helped engineer the 2004 “Orange Revolution” that thwarted his first bid at the presidency, Yanukovych said that she was part of a ring of criminals and that her fate should lie in the hands of Ukrainian judges.

Tymoshenko’s jailing symbolised what Brussels has called Kiev’s use of selective justice and his comments effectively dismissed the intense diplomatic efforts by the European Union, in which he has participated, to secure her release.

Yanukovych’s promise to attend an EU summit tomorrow appears intended to soothe domestic outrage over his government’s sudden about face, or focus on Ukraine’s economic ties with the bloc without making any political promises.

But his comments over Tymoshenko are sure to cause a tense exchange with EU leaders when he attends a summit tomorrow, particularly with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“The issue of Yulia Tymoshenko should not be a hindrance to Ukraine’s European integration,” the statement said.

“The (Ukrainian) courts, which she has been evading and thereby obstructing justice, should give the answer. What does the European Union have to do with this? Is the European Union a court?” Yanukovych said in a televised interview.

Germany was to have accepted Tymoshenko for treatment for chronic back trouble under a compromise deal which was being put together by a two-man EU humanitarian mission. This has now died along with the planned signing.

The signing of the EU deal, which Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski said was thwarted by a Russian policy of blackmail and pressure, would have marked a definitive turn towards the West for Kiev and away from its former Soviet master Moscow.

Tymoshenko, whose jailing on abuse of power charges sparked criticism at home and abroad, is on hunger strike over Kiev’s decision to renew economic ties with Russia.

Yanukovych has held his fire over Tymoshenko during Ukraine’s negotiations with the European Union, but yesterday he said that she and her “criminal activities” were to blame in part for the state of the country’s troubled economy.

Tymoshenko is accused of being behind Ukraine’s negotiations with Russia that force Kiev to pay around $400 a month per 1,000 cubic metres of Russian gas, above the $385 average Western Europe pays.

“Today because of Tymoshenko, Ukraine is paying off debts to Russia,” he said.

“Friends of Tymoshenko are sitting in various prisons in various countries around the world,” he said, in a reference to former prime minister Pavlo Lazarenko who was accused of money laundering in the US.

He served his sentence but is still in detention in the US over immigration issues.

Ukraine, which must find more than $17bn next year to meet Russian gas bills and debt repayments including $3.7bn to the International Monetary Fund, has said Europe’s financial aid offer to Kiev was “humiliating”.

Ukraine’s soveriegn foreign debt has accumulated to more than $26bn, or more than 16% of the country’s $160bn GDP in 2012.

In the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, President Komorowski said Russia had exploited Ukraine’s short-term economic weaknesses to keep it within its orbit, adding to tough statements directed at the Kremlin from various EU officials.

“The problem is the policy of pressure and blackmail employed towards Ukraine by its eastern neighbour,” Komorowski said in an interview.

Hundreds of protesters continued demonstrations in Kiev against the decision of Yanukovych’s government to suspend the signing of the landmark deal with the European Union.

“We know that Russia holds nothing for us. We cannot allow Putin’s Russia to be our future. We will continue to come out on the streets to let our leadership know our place is in Russia,” said Igor Panin, 31, an entrepreneur who travelled from his home city of Poltava to demonstrate in Kiev.

Protesters gathered outside the main government building during a cabinet meeting as hundreds of riot police in body armour stood by.

Prime Minister Mykola Azarov meanwhile stressed that Ukraine still wanted to reach a historic deal on closer ties with the European Union.

His announcement failed to appease protesters who blockaded the government building.

Azarov told a government meeting that Ukraine fully intended to forge closer relations with the EU: “I affirm with full authority that the negotiating process over the Association Agreement is continuing, and the work on moving our country closer to European standards is not stopping for a single day.”

Led by opposition leaders, nearly a thousand protesters rallied outside the government building for a fourth day yesterday under a heavy police presence.

“These authorities have to step down,” world boxing champion turned opposition leader Vitali Klitschko said to loud cries of “Shame!”

Jailed opposition leader Tymoshenko, who is on hunger strike in solidarity with the protesters, called on them to close ranks across party divides.

“Everything that stands in the way of our absolute unity, should be immediately taken down,” she was quoted as saying by her daughter Yevgenia late on Tuesday.

Following the appeal of the fiery former prime minister, demonstrators removed their tents from central Kiev’s European Square and joined civil society activists on neighbouring Independence Square, the symbol of the “Orange Revolution”.

Around 3,000 had gathered in the centre by afternoon, and more were expected in the evening.

Around 15,000 rallied yesterday in the western city of Lviv, and several thousand in the nearby city of Ivano-Frankivsk.

Yanukovych has called for calm after the protests turned violent over the past few days, with riot police firing tear gas and protesters hurling traffic cones and rocks at the security forces.