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Ukraine’s Batkivshchyna party withdraws from negotiations on new parliamentary coalition

The parties Petro Poroshenko Bloc, People’s Front, Batkivshchyna and the Radical Party were in talks on a new coalition but the lawmakers have been failing to reach agreement for more than a week

Yulia Timoshenko EPA/ROMAN PILIPEY

Yulia Timoshenko

© EPA/ROMAN PILIPEY

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KIEV, April 5. /TASS/. Ukraine’s Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party has withdrawn from negotiations on a new coalition in the Ukrainian parliament to go into opposition, Yulia Tymoshenko, the leader of the party, said on Tuesday.

"Today, I can announce a consolidated decision of our political force. We have taken a decision to withdraw from the futile negotiating process on the establishment of a new coalition. We go into democratic, pro-European opposition," she told a news conference.

According to earlier reports, the parties Petro Poroshenko Bloc, People’s Front, Batkivshchyna and the Radical Party were in talks on a new coalition but the lawmakers have been failing to reach agreement for more than a week.

The current political crisis in Ukraine broke out after the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) recognized the work of the current government unsatisfactory but failed to send Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to resignation. It actually provoked a split in the ruling coalition fraught with early parliamentary elections. The only remedy, according to the lawmakers, is to form a new coalition, overhaul the government and elect a new prime minister. The current prime minister however refuses to step down and is waiting the lawmakers’ decision.

The former coalition of Petro Poroshenko Bloc, People’s Front, Samopomishch (Self-Assistance), Batkivshchyna and Radical Party was formed in the Verkhovna Rada on November 27, 2014.

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