KIEV,
December 3 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Muslims in Ukraine
expressed Friday, December 3, concerns over the current political
impasse on the disputed elections, as the country's top court was
poised to rule on the polls.
The
Federation of Social Organizations (Arraid) -- the largest Islamic
group in the country -- urged in a statement the crisis would come to
an end soon.
“The
(Muslim) community is keen on Ukraine keeping its territorial
integrity and marching to democracy as well,” read the statement, a
copy of which was sent to IslamOnline.net.
Arraid
called on Ukrainian Muslims to pray that the current tension would be
defused peacefully in their turbulent country.
A
ruling was expected at any time and the court's judgment was likely to
set out juridical and constitutional parameters for determining how
the country's crisis plays out in the days and weeks ahead.
The
court's options include ruling that the election to choose a successor
to departing President Leonid Kuchma was tainted wholly or partly and
therefore cannot stand.
Few
expect the panel to endorse the official but contested victory of the
pro-Russia Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich in a vote the opposition
says was fraudulent, a claim backed in large measure by the West.
As
the judges heard closing arguments in Kiev, lawmakers in neighboring
Russia overwhelmingly approved a resolution accusing the European
Union, the European parliament and the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) of fomenting unrest with international
implications.
Actions
by these bodies, the Russian State Duma said, could lead to “massive
disorder, chaos and a split of the country” and “this will have
the most negative consequences not only for Ukraine but for Russia,
all of Europe and for the international community as a whole.”
The
opposition candidate who has claimed victory in the election, Viktor
Yushchenko, dismissed such talk as nonsense.
“Currently
the outgoing regime is menacing Europe with the threat of separatism
and the dissolution of Ukraine,” Yushchenko said in a commentary
published in the US business daily Wall Street Journal.
“I
state with full responsibility for my words: This is a fictional,
artificial threat. It does not exist,” he said.
The
Ukraine crisis centers on rival claims to the presidency by Yanukovich
and Western-leaning Yushchenko. Both agree the election was flawed,
but each accuses the other of fraud.
Yushchenko,
along with departing Kuchma, Russian President Vladimir Putin and
several European leaders have uniformly rejected talk of separatism
among officials in Ukraine's Russian-speaking east and south of the
country.
However,
one eastern Ukraine region has already announced plans for a local
referendum that would amount to a first step to seeking greater
independence from the rest of the country.
Russia
Trip
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Kuchma, left, flew to meet Putin in Moscow. (AFP)
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On
Thursday, Kuchma made a quick trip to Moscow where he met Putin and
afterwards sketched out a plan for breaking the political impasse in
Ukraine that won a measure of support from the Russian leader.
The
plan centered on a transfer of government authority to the Ukrainian
parliament following the supreme court ruling for an interim period,
during which a multi-party working group would hammer out terms,
including constitutional reforms, for holding new presidential
elections.
Yushchenko
and his supporters will be distrustful of Kuchma's plan, as it is
likely to include proposals the president has sought to push through
for the past two years to dilute the power of the presidency, a notion
the opposition has consistently rejected.
Iraq
Withdrawal
Against
the backdrop of the high court deliberations, Ukraine's parliament
voted to demand the pullout of the country's 1,600 troops based in
Iraq as part of the US-led coalition there.
The
move was certain to be heard loud and clear in Washington, and though
both the government and the opposition have expressed support for
bringing Ukrainian troops home from Iraq, the opposition appeared to
have been taken by surprise by the timing of the vote.
“We
don't think this is the right time to raise this issue,” Irina
Gerashchenko, a spokeswoman for Yushchenko, told AFP.
“We
need to resolve the internal crisis in Ukraine,” she said, adding
that the motion had been proposed by the Communists and backed by
pro-government lawmakers with the support of a minority of opposition
deputies.
