You're reading: PACE calls on Ukrainian president to release Tymoshenko

STRASBURG – The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has called on Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych to consider all possible means to release former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and other members of the former government and also to enable them to participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

Such an amendment to the resolution on the functioning of democratic institutions in Ukraine was supported during the vote in Strasbourg on Thursday.

The co-rapporteurs of the PACE Monitoring Committee for Ukraine, as well as deputies from European countries, are the authors of this amendment.

"The assembly asks the president of Ukraine to consider all legal means available to him to release former government members and to allow them to compete in the upcoming parliamentary elections," reads the resolution.

The assembly also called on the Ukrainian authorities "to promptly change these two articles [under which Tymoshenko was convicted], in line with the standards of the Council of Europe" and to drop charges against former government officials.