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Ukraine’s parliament to meet over confidence to premier on July 31

The Ukrainian president said he hoped for further joint work with Arseniy Yatsenyuk and his cabinet

© ITAR-TASS/Zurab Javakhadze

KIEV, July 25. /ITAR-TASS/. Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada, or parliament, will hold an extraordinary plenary session on July 31 to consider a confidence vote to Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who announced his resignation on Thursday.

The decision to this effect was passed on Friday at a meeting between President Pyotr Poroshenko, parliament speaker Alexander Turchinov , Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and leaders of parliamentary factions.

“The extraordinary session is planned to be held in a partially closed regime. The agenda will include a number of issues linked with the investigation of the crash of the Malaysian MH17 plane, for instance, the use of civil police forces,” the presidential website reports.

At today’s meeting, Poroshenko stressed that the collapse of the Verkhovna Rada coalition could not paralyze the work of the parliament and was not a reason for the government resignation. The Ukrainian president said he hoped for further joint work with Arseniy Yatsenyuk and his cabinet, the website said.

According to the website, Poroshenko, Turchinov, Yatsenyuk and the faction leaders agreed to waste no time and get back to the consideration of bills on Ukraine’s state budget for 2014 and amendments to the Tax Code.

On Thursday, Yatsenyuk announced his resignation as Ukraine’s Prime Minister over the in the wake of a fall-apart of the coalition in the Verkhovna Rada and the lawmakers’ refusal to support the government’s initiatives, including the ones on sequestering the state budget and reforming the national oil and gas monopoly, Naftogaz Ukrainy. Yatsenyuk signed a decree appointing Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Regional Development, Construction and the Housing Sector Vladimir Groisman acting Prime Minister.

In the meantime, Alexander Danilyuk, the Ukrainian president’s representatives at the cabinet of ministers, told journalists on Friday President Poroshenko hoped Yatshenyuk would continue as Prime Minister at least until the elections to the Verkhovna Rada due this autumn.

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