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Ex-governor Saakashvili rules out cooperation with Poroshenko

Mikheil Saakashvili explained his resignation with the impossibility to fight corruption while Ukraine’s top officials are involved in it

Mikheil Saakashvili Vasyl Shevchenko/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images

Mikheil Saakashvili

© Vasyl Shevchenko/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images

KIEV, November 11 /TASS/. Mikheil Saakashvili, the former governor of Ukraine’s Odessa region, said on Friday that he would no longer cooperate with President Pyotr Poroshenko.

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"Poroshenko had a chance to use me for the right purposes, for real reforms instead of intrigues," Saakashvili told a news conference in Kiev. "But it turned out that real reforms and his own prosperity are contradicting each other."

"He is not the one to give me orders. Poroshenko knows me longer than Trump and he did not want to use my experience in order to help Ukraine, therefore, I am going to do what I want," Saakashvili said.

He added that he would meet with Poroshenko only when the president was ready for early parliamentary elections.

Saakashvili, who served as Georgia’s president in 2004-2013, announced his resignation on November 7. He explained his move with the impossibility to fight corruption while Ukraine’s top officials are involved in it.

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