Ukraine: Interim leader Turchynov stresses "European choice"

Ukraine's new interim President Oleksandr Turchynov has said the country will focus on closer integration with the EU.

Mr Turchynov was appointed following the dismissal of President Viktor Yanukovych by MPs on Saturday.

Mr Yanukovych's rejection of an EU-Ukraine trade pact triggered the protests that toppled him.

The interim president also said he was 'ready for dialogue' with Russia, which has backed Mr Yanukovych.

'We have to return to the family of European countries,' Mr Turchynov said in a televised address, hours after his appointment by MPs.

Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov Born in Dnipropetrovsk, eastern Ukraine, March 1964 Trained as metallurgist and economist 1980s - Local communist Komsomol youth leader 1993 - Economic adviser to ex-President Leonid Kuchma 1998-2007 - Elected to parliament 1999 - Deputy leader of Yulia Tymoshenko's Fatherland party 2004 - Campaigner in Orange Revolution 2005 - Head of Ukraine Security Service (SBU) 2007-2010 - Deputy PM February 2014 - Parliament speaker, then acting president

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has announced she is visiting Kiev on Monday to discuss EU support 'for a lasting solution to the political crisis and measures to stabilise the economic situation'.

Mr Turchynov said he wanted relations with Russia to be 'on a new, fair, equal and neighbourly basis, acknowledging and taking into account Ukraine's European choice'.

Russia has expressed its disapproval of events in Kiev, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying the opposition 'had in effect seized power in Kiev, refused to disarm and continued to place its bets on violence'.

Russia has recalled its ambassador to Kiev for consultations.

The US has said parliament's actions were legitimate and has warned Russia against military intervention.

'Modern country'

Mr Turchynov took charge on Sunday and told MPs they had until Tuesday to form a new unity government.

Thousands of opposition supporters remain in Kiev's Independence Square, heeding opposition calls not to disperse.

The health ministry says 88 people, mostly anti-Yanukovych protesters, are now known to have been killed in clashes that took place earlier this week.

In an address on Saturday, Mr Yanukovych refused to stand down. He is last thought to have been in the eastern city of Kharkiv after travelling there late on Friday night.

Media reports have quoted Ukrainian officials as saying he was stopped by border police while attempting to flee to Russia.

MPs from Mr Yanukovych's Party of Regions now appear to be disowning him, having issued a statement criticising him to Interfax-Ukraine.

Meanwhile, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who was freed from detention on Saturday, has ruled out becoming prime minister again.

Her release was one of the conditions of the EU-Ukraine trade pact that Mr Yanukovych rejected last year.

Former world champion boxer Vitaly Klitschko suggested to the BBC that he may make a bid for the presidency in elections scheduled for 25 May.

'I want to make Ukraine a modern European country,' he said. 'If I can do that through the president's position, I will do my best.'

In other decisions on Sunday:

Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara and Education Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk were dismissed Arrest warrants were issued for former Incomes Minister Oleksandr Klimenko and former Prosecutor-General Viktor Pshonka Parliament lowered the official status of the Russian language by cancelling a law brought in by Mr Yanukovych Parliament also voted to seize Mr Yanukovych's luxury estate near Kiev, which protesters entered on Saturday Financial support Kiev and Donetsk

Ukraine's new government may have a short time to win public support.

Many on Independence Square are sceptical of Ukraine's entire political class, Ms Tymoshenko included, and may start searching soon for an entirely new set of leaders.

Donetsk is Mr Yanukovych's home region and his support base, close to the border with Russia. It's Ukraine's industrial heartland, a mining centre and almost unanimously Russian-speaking.

A few hundred pro-Yanukovych protesters gathered on the main square here. They called the anti-government demonstrators 'fascists' and chanted pro-Russian slogans. A group surged towards the other side of the square, where a handful of anti-Yanukovych demonstrators were gathered. Police intervened. If this one city is so divided, just imagine the splits across the entire country.

Also on Sunday, US National Security Adviser Susan Rice warned Russia it would be a 'grave mistake' to intervene militarily.

Russia and the US have been on opposite sides during the Ukraine crisis, with the US, along with the EU, backing the opposition.

Earlier, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was reported to have called Ms Tymoshenko and urged her to work for unity.

Mrs Merkel also called Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday to discuss the crisis; both agreed that the country's 'territorial integrity must be safeguarded', her spokesman said.

There has been a fear that the crisis may exacerbate divisions between the Russian-leaning east of the country and the more pro-EU west.

Germany is trying to act as a broker in the conflict and to assuage Russian fears that it will be threatened if Ukraine moves closer to the European Union, the BBC's Stephen Evans reports from Berlin.

Some German government MPs have called for swift financial aid to Ukraine, possibly involving the International Monetary Fund, our correspondent reports.

Moscow recently agreed to provide $15bn (£9bn; 11bn euros) to support the Ukrainian government. If Russia withdrew that offer, the debate in Berlin is whether the European Union could replace the Russian money and how that might affect relations with Moscow, he adds.

Earlier, a US official said US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew had discussed Ukraine with Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Sydney.

Mr Siluanov reportedly left open the question of whether Russia will pay the next instalment of financial help for Ukraine, worth $2bn.

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