KIEV, Ukraine, Nov. 23 (UPI) -- Jailed former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has called on the government to review its decision to halt a trade deal with the European Union.
Tymoshenko's comments were made in a letter she wrote to President Viktor Yanukovych Friday and posted on her Fatherland political party's website, RIA Novosti reported.
The letter was in response to Yanukovych's Cabinet deciding Thursday to suspend an association agreement and a free-trade deal with the European Union that was to be signed next week at an EU summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.
"Frankly speaking, yesterday, after the government's decision to reject an agreement with the EU, I simply wanted to kill you," Tymoshenko wrote in her letter to Yanukovych. "I think some 70 percent of the people overseen by you felt the same. Forgive us all these spontaneous emotions ... but now we need not to run into aggression but save the situation by all means. You are the only person who can do it."
An aide to the Lithuanian president said Ukrainian officials admitted they decided to halt the agreements after being pressured to do so by Russia. Russia has denied the allegations.
Tymoshenko, who has been suffering from back pains, is serving a seven-year prison sentence for a 2009 gas deal with Russia. Earlier Thursday, Ukraine's Parliament rejected a drafted bill that was aimed at allowing Tymoshenko to seek medical treatment abroad.
