KIEV, June 8 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine's defense minister said Thursday that joint air-force exercises with the U.K. scheduled for next week had been cancelled as a political crisis mounted over foreign troops' presence in the country.
Ukraine's parliament earlier this year banned foreign troops from participating in military exercises in the country, and the new parliament has yet to convene following parliamentary elections in March. Clashes erupted Thursday in the south of the country over the presence of a U.S. Navy ship at a Black Sea port for exercises slated to start late July.
"In the current situation, we and the British side have decided to postpone the Tight Knot 2006 military exercises," the defense ministry's press service quoted Anatoly Hrytsenko as saying.
Legislators in the southern Crimea region Tuesday declared the peninsula a NATO-free zone after a U.S. cargo ship, Advantage, called at the Black Sea port of Feodosia on May 27 ahead of a NATO exercise, Sea Breeze 2006, sparking mass protests in the largely Russian-speaking area.
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said in May the country had originally planned to host six multinational military exercises in 2006, including exercises with the United States and other NATO countries.
But the ministry said that the country's parliament, the Supreme Rada, would have to give permission for the exercises to be held after it banned foreign troops from participating in military exercises in Ukraine in early 2006.
