April 07, 2007	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 18, 1428

KIEV: Ukraine’s Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych is seeking to throw off a reputation as Moscow’s man in his deepening political tussle with the country's president, analysts here said on Friday.

For many years a partisan of closer ties with Russia, Yanukovych’s powerbase is in Ukraine’s industrial and mining areas, many of them Russian-speaking with close ties to Russia.

But in the current circumstances, looking west is the logical move, analysts said.

His arch-rival, Ukraine’s pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko, triggered a political crisis here on Monday when he announced he was dissolving parliament and called snap elections after accusing lawmakers of violating the constitution.

The president has made it his top priority to integrate Ukraine with Western institutions, including Nato.

Yanukovych, who came to power after parliamentary polls last summer, has opposed Nato membership and vows that parliament will keep working.

On Thursday he borrowed from Yushchenko’s copybook, calling on Western countries including Austria to step in and help mediate in the stand-off.

“He is trying to convince those people who Yushchenko trusts to tell him that he is wrong,” said political analyst Mykhailo Pogrebinsky, director of the Centre of Political and Conflict studies in Kiev.

Meanwhile, the prime minister has kept to a minimum his public contacts with Moscow, the region’s Soviet-era master.

—AFP