You're reading: Prague hopes asylum to Tymoshenko’s husband won’t affect relations with Ukraine

Prague hopes that its granting political asylum to the husband of jailed former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Oleksandr Tymoshenko, won't affect Ukrainian-Czech relations, the Washington Post wrote on Friday, Jan.5

According to the newspaper, Czech Interior Minister Jan Kubice says that he doesn’t believe the decision to grant Oleksandr Tymoshenko asylum would harm his country’s relations with Ukraine.

As reported, Oleksandr Tymoshenko was been granted political asylum in the Czech Republic.

"We have already discussed the issue of granting political asylum to Mr. Tymoshenko. I can confirm that a few months ago Mr. Tymoshenko addressed the Interior Ministry with a request for political asylum, and now [the request] has been satisfied," local media quoted the Czech interior minister as saying.

In 2011, the Czech Republic granted political asylum to the former Ukrainian economy minister, a former member of the Tymoshenko government, Bohdan Danylyshyn.

In May 2011 Kyiv claimed that two Czech diplomats were engaged in spying activities and collected classified military-technical and military-political information in Ukraine. They were declared personae non grata and expelled from Ukraine.

The Czech Republic, in turn, linked this step with the provision of political asylum to Danylyshyn, and in response expelled two Ukrainian diplomats.