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Opposition drops blockade, Ukraine parliament resumes work

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KIEV, July 6 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine's parliament resumed work Thursday after the opposition ended its the blockade of the rostrum and reached a compromise with the coalition majority.

Speaking in the Supreme Rada, parliamentary opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych said: "We had to blockade the parliament to protect our interests and ensure that the authorities worked effectively."

Yanukovych's Party of Regions had staged a sit-in since June 27 in protest against the allocation of Cabinet and Rada portfolios by the coalition of three Western-leaning groupings.

The largely pro-Russia Party of Regions, which won the largest share of the March 26 parliamentary vote, was frozen out of parliamentary coalition talks between the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, the pro-presidential Our Ukraine bloc, and the Socialist Party. The three parties formed a coalition June 22 after three months of squabbling over key posts.

The parties involved reached a compromise on parliamentary committee posts and agreed to draft laws regulating the coalition majority and the opposition's work in parliament at a conciliation council meeting Thursday morning.

The Supreme Rada is to form the government by July 22, the deadline after which the president is entitled to dissolve legislature and call new elections. President Viktor Yushchenko has already warned that holding new elections could be too costly.

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