April 11,
2016 (BBC Europe) The Ukrainian Prime Minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, has
announced he will resign next week, blaming politicians' failure to enact
"real changes". Mr Yatsenyuk, in office since former pro-Russian
President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted in February 2014, said he would inform
parliament on Tuesday. The current President, Petro Poroshenko, asked him to
quit in February, saying he had lost support. His government has been accused
of inaction and corruption. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has
threatened to withhold aid money if it does not carry out reforms.
Parliamentary
Speaker Volodymyr Groysman has been nominated by President Poroshenko's party to
replace Mr Yatsenyuk. US Vice-President Joe Biden, in a call to Mr Yatsenyuk on
Sunday, congratulated him on "accomplishments over the past two
years", including economic reforms, but said "these changes must be
irreversible".
Mr Yatsenyuk came to power promising
to tackle corruption and implement economic reforms but has increasingly become
the focus of accusations of corruption, even though no concrete evidence was
produced. Western governments have expressed concern over the resignation of
reform-minded figures from the government. President Poroshenko himself came
under scrutiny this week after leaked documents suggested he had set up an
offshore company as a tax haven using Panamanian legal firm Mossack Fonseca. He
said he had done nothing wrong and Ukrainian prosecution officials said there
was no evidence of a crime but there were calls for his impeachment.
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