KIEV, February 28 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine will fulfill conditions set by the European Union in order to sign an Association Agreement by November, Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara said during his visit to Poland.
“I think both the Ukrainian government and parliament are able to do what we are supposed to by the Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius,” the Ukrainian news agency Unian quoted Kozhara as saying Wednesday.
A number of Western leaders say prosecution of Ukrainian opposition leaders is politically motivated and hinders Ukraine-EU rapprochement. The Ukrainian leadership denies that prosecution of ex-premier Yulia Tymoshenko and former ministers from her cabinet is biased.
According to a joint statement adopted following the 16th EU-Ukraine summit on Monday, the EU and Ukraine do not rule out that they may sign the Association Agreement “possibly by the time of the Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius in November 2013.”
The landmark deal was initialed in March 2012 in Brussels after five years of negotiations. The agreement, aimed at establishing political association and economic integration between the EU and Ukraine, is to replace the 1998 Partnership and Cooperation Agreement as a basis for bilateral relations.
The EU says that for the deal to be signed, Ukraine should show tangible progress in addressing the issues of “selective justice, elections and Association Agenda reforms” by May 2013.
