Yanukovych achieves high level of equilibrium in foreign policy - opinion

Kyiv, March 4 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has declared he will stick to a policy of European integration, while looking for a way to achieve good relations with the Customs Union, Director of Kyiv's Center for Political and Conflict Studies Mykhailo Pohrebynsky has said.

"I would say that President Yanukovych is achieving an extremely high level of political equilibrium. We can't say that he's giving up any alternatives in [the country's] European choice - he definitely says what we need to and should sign. And everything is being done to achieve that," he said at the press conference hosted by Interfax-Ukraine on Friday.

Pohrebynsky said the president was attempting in every possible way to find an optimal model of cooperation between Ukraine and the Customs Union.

"For the first time [at his press conference on March 1] we heard about the format of supervisor in the Customs Union. Probably, I might be wrong, but as far as I know, the Customs Union doesn't foresee such a format. But this proves that Yanukovych is not giving up the possible search for a convenient option for relations with the Customs Union," the expert said.

Director of Penta Center for Applied Political Studies Volodymyr Fesenko said, in turn: "Judging from what Yanukovych recently said about relations with the Customs Union, he's searching for an acceptable form of agreement with Russia…A compromise option that could satisfy us, and according to which it would be possible to agree with Russia. This concerns the gas problem as well."