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Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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| Information | | |
Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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27Feb14
Parliament in Ukraine to Confirm New Government
Ukraine's parliament is to consider the nomination Thursday of a new government presided by one of the leaders of a protest movement that spearheaded the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych over the weekend.
Arseny Yatsenyuk, who served as economy minister for a year up to August 2006, is expected to guide a Cabinet that will among its first challenges face steering Ukraine through a perilous debt crisis and restoring stability in the deeply divided country.
Another notable nomination includes that of Andriy Paruby, head of a self-defined defense force during recent months of protests, as secretary of the National Security and Defense Council.
Approval of the government is likely to be a formality in a parliament that has since the weekend approved a raft of measures aimed at expunging traces of Yanukovych's rule.
On Saturday, the erstwhile opposition took control over parliament and together with disaffected deputies from the ex-ruling Party of Regions voted to impeach Yanukovych, who is currently on the run in an unknown location.
Russia has criticized the swift ascension to power by the opposition, saying that they reneged on a compromise deal reached Friday to form an interim government and pursue constitutional reforms by the end of the year.
Ukraine has received tentative offers of financial support from the United States and the European Union, which will prove essential to mitigate Russia's expected intention to back away from issuing the $15 billion in loans that were announced late last year.
The government also needs to cope with an uncertain security situation in the southern Crimean peninsula, where the ethnic Russian community has become alarmed by increasingly belligerent nationalist rhetoric among leading politicians in Ukraine.
Complicating matters, representatives of the ethnic Tatar community, who represent more than one-tenth of the population in Crimea, have come out in support of the incoming regime, setting the stage for tensions inside the peninsula.
On Thursday morning, an unidentified group of armed people seized the local legislature in the Crimean town of Simferopol and hoisted the Russian tricolor up a flagpole.
Fighting broke out Wednesday in Simferopol as large crowds of opponents of the newly installed national authorities faced off against representatives of the Tatar community outside the local parliament. Many among the ethnic Russian gathering waved flags of Russia and chanted the country's name in an apparent appeal for assistance on their behalf.
At least two people died and another 30 people sought medical help as a result of the clashes, the local health ministry said Thursday.
[Source: Ria Novosti, Kiev, 27Feb14]
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