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UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT REPORTEDLY TO HEAD 2006 PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION LIST. Our Ukraine People's Union leader Roman Bezsmertnyy, who is also deputy prime minister, told journalists in Kyiv on 14 June that President Viktor Yushchenko will head the election list of a coalition the Our Ukraine People's Union intends to build for the 2006 parliamentary elections, Interfax reported. "We still hope that the coalition will include the parties named by the president -- the Our Ukraine People's Union, the Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc, and the People's Party [headed by Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn]," Bezsmertnyy said. Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko said the same day that her Fatherland Party is ready to support Yushchenko not only in the 2006 parliamentary elections but also in the next presidential election, which is expected in 2009. JM
KYIV, PRAGUE TO TACKLE UKRAINIAN GUEST WORKER PROBLEMS. Ukrainian President Yushchenko said after his talks with his Czech counterpart Vaclav Klaus in Kyiv on 14 June that the two countries' foreign ministries will soon prepare a draft agreement on the temporary employment of Ukrainians in the Czech Republic, CTK reported. According to Yushchenko, some 200,000 Ukrainians seeking temporary jobs in the Czech Republic are the main problems in bilateral relations. "We have both accepted it as a problem. An agreement that will solve these issues must be worked out," Klaus commented on Ukrainian guest workers in his country. Speaking at a Ukrainian-Czech business forum in Kyiv later the same day, Yushchenko pledged that the government, jointly with the Verkhovna Rada, will soon present a list of state companies subject to privatization in the coming 12 months. JM
TIRASPOL SLAMS MOLDOVAN PARLIAMENT'S CALL FOR RUSSIAN PULLOUT. Valerii Litskai, foreign minister of the self-proclaimed Transdniester Republic, said in a statement that the Moldovan parliament's appeal last week for the pullout of Russian forces from the breakaway region (see "RFE/RL Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova Report," 15 June 2005) only heightens tension between Tiraspol and Chisinau, ITAR-TASS reported on 14 June. "The appeal of the Moldovan parliament to denounce the 1992 Moldovan-Russian agreement on a cease-fire and on a peaceful settlement of the conflict, in conditions of the absence of a negotiating process which is being blocked by the Moldovan authorities, automatically brings us back to the armed confrontation, which we lived through 13 years ago," Litskai noted in the statement released in Tiraspol. Infotag reported the same day that the Transdniester Foreign Ministry has recently disseminated a statement in the local press lambasting Chisinau for what was said to be its poor human-rights record and defective democracy. "Transdniester is not subject to whatever judgements by the state where such phenomena as violations of fundamental human rights and freedoms, political prisoners, persecution of journalists, closure of opposition papers, absolute power of secret police, corruption, [and] white slavery are norms of everyday life," the statement reportedly reads. JM