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Tymoshenko pledges to review Ukraine's gas deals as PM

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Ukraine's prime minister-designate said Thursday she would reconsider all of the country's current agreements on natural gas supplies and secure a return to lower prices.

KIEV, June 22 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine's prime minister-designate said Thursday she would reconsider all of the country's current agreements on natural gas supplies and secure a return to lower prices.

Yulia Tymoshenko, set to become prime minister under a coalition government deal between three Western-leaning parties, said: "All agreements on gas supplies to Ukraine today call for further profound revision, and for construction in a friendly mode of new contractual relations with Russia and Turkmenistan."

She spoke minutes after her eponymous bloc, President Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine party and the Socialist Party announced they had finally agreed to create a coalition government after nearly three months of negotiations.

Tymoshenko will take the prime ministerial post as the leader of the bloc that garnered most votes of the three in the latest parliamentary election in March.

She has repeatedly criticized a deal struck with Russia's Gazprom in January, which set a price of $95 per 1,000 cubic meters of natural gas from the previous $50.

The Russian energy giant has said it plans another round of talks for July to raise the price further.

Ukraine's Justice Ministry said Thursday gas prices for domestic consumers would rise again starting July 1. The ministry said it had registered a National Electricity Regulation Commission resolution, which "means the resolution came into force."

The increase will be the second gas price rise since the start of this year, after prices rose by 25% in May. But the decision to raise gas prices has proved unpopular. About 200,000 people took to the streets of major Ukrainian towns Wednesday to protest the move.

Tymoshenko also said she would complete work on forming Ukraine's new government by next Tuesday.

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