BERLIN — The daughter of jailed former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko met with Germany's justice minister on Monday in a bid to increase European pressure on Ukraine's leadership.
Eugenia Tymoshenko had a private meeting with Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger in Berlin to discuss her mother’s case and the rule of law in Ukraine, ministry spokesman Anders Mertzlufft said.
Yulia Tymoshenko has been on hunger strike for about two weeks and needs medical treatment for a back condition. She is serving a seven-year prison sentence on charges of abuse of power, a case the West has strongly condemned as politically motivated.
German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said Chancellor Angela Merkel won’t meet Eugenia Tymoshenko on Monday, but that she is "up to date on all the developments of the Tymoshenko case."
Eugenia Tymoshenko made no comments as she walked to her meeting with the minister. A news conference scheduled with lawmakers from Merkel’s party later Monday was canceled at short notice.
German leaders have offered Tymoshenko medical treatment in their country, a move Kiev has rejected. Tymoshenko reportedly agreed last week to receive medical treatment in a Ukrainian facility in the presence of one German doctor. But on Tuesday her spokeswoman, Natasha Lysova, said the former prime minister was still pondering the issue and would discuss it with her lawyer later in the day.
Germany has been at the forefront of Europe’s critical stance on Ukraine’s handling of the Tymoshenko case and those of other jailed prominent opposition politicians.
Pressure on Ukraine has grown over the past two weeks as more European officials announced they intend to refrain from attending any of the European soccer championship’s matches to be held in Ukraine in June.
But Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov denounced those decisions Monday, saying calls to boycott the games were an attempt to humiliate his country.
"Who do they want to humiliate? They want to humiliate us, our whole people, our country," Azarov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
