KIEV, May 26 (RIA Novosti) - Yulia Tymoshenko, the one-time heroine of Ukraine's 2004 "orange revolution", said Friday she would refuse to back a former head of the nation's security council for the post of parliamentary speaker.
A Ukrainian newspaper said earlier Friday that Tymoshenko had met with Petro Poroshenko, who resigned as secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council last fall amid accusations of corruption, to discuss the distribution of a new government's posts among "orange" coalition members.
But the press service of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc dismissed suggestions that the fiery former prime minister would support Poroshenko's candidacy for the speaker's chair:
"Yulia Tymoshenko did not, does not and will not support Petro Poroshenko's election as Supreme Rada speaker," a spokesman said,
The press service said Tymoshenko would also reject the mooted appointment of Oleksandr Tretyakov, who like Poroshenko is a member of the pro-presidential Our Ukraine movement and is considered to be a member of President Viktor Yushchenko's close entourage, as the head of the president's secretariat.
Tymoshenko was originally Yushchenko's prime minister but was fired after only eight months in the job after a public falling out.
Tymoshenko's bloc, Our Ukraine and the Socialist Party are holding complicated talks to establish a parliamentary majority in the wake of March 26 elections that failed to produce a clear winner.
