Ukraine’s jailed ex-Prime Minister and opposition party’s leader Yulia Tymoshenko has invited the embattled President Viktor Yanukovych to a televised debate on the ongoing political crisis, the party spokesperson said today.
“I am now calling on Viktor Yanukovych: if public debates is what he wants, I am up for an in-depth discussion on tactical and strategic steps that would put an end to the Ukrainian crisis,” the opposition Batkyvshchina spokesperson cited Ms. Tymoshenko as saying Wednesday.
The former premier added she didn’t care much about the format of debates, where they would be held or whether they would have anything to do with the upcoming elections. “We could hold a video conference, since my ward in the Kharkiv hospital has been outfitted with all necessary equipment,” she pointed out.
This invitation comes after the president likewise taunted opposition UDAR Party’s Vitali Klitschko to a public “sparring,” but Klitschko turned him down saying he’d readily take part in presidential debates – and that only if Yanukovych step down.
Yulia Tymoshenko was given a seven-year prison term in 2011 after a court convicted her of overstepping her powers in a gas deal with a Russian energy corporation. She has been receiving medical treatment in a Khrakiv hospital in Ukraine since 2012, Voice of Russia inform.
