Ukrainian minister offers to resign over airport events

UKRAINE’S INTERIOR minister offered to resign yesterday over allegations that he was prevented from boarding a flight at Frankfurt airport because he was drunk and disorderly.

In the latest blow to Ukraine’s hapless pro-western government, German police said Yuri Lutsenko and his 19-year-old son were barred from a flight last week because they were extremely drunk, shouted abuse and hurled mobile phones at police officers after being detained at the airport.

Mr Lutsenko denied being drunk and rejected German media reports which claimed he had called police officers “Nazi swine” and had threatened to “kill” them.

“I have become the victim of a banal situation blown up into a political scandal because of domestic squabbles inside Ukraine,” he said.

Ukraine has endured almost constant political turmoil since the 2004 Orange Revolution ushered into power president Viktor Yushchenko, prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko and other top officials such as Mr Lutsenko.

The power struggle between Mr Yushchenko and Ms Tymoshenko has poisoned their relations and practically paralysed Ukrainian politics, as it plunges into a deep recession and is buffeted by strong Russian opposition to its attempts to draw closer to the US, the EU and Nato.

If parliament accepts Mr Lutsenko’s resignation, Ukraine will be without three key officials following the departure this year of the foreign and finance ministers.

Mr Lutsenko insisted he only had one glass of beer before an intended flight to Seoul and had got into a “protracted verbal argument” when his group was barred from the aircraft, after which police grabbed his son, who was reportedly recovering from an operation. “In that situation, I could not keep my cool. First I told them my son had recently been operated on, but when that didn’t help, I tried to stop the violence against my son. Then, I was handcuffed as well,” he said.

Mr Lutsenko, who shifted his support from Mr Yushchenko to Ms Tymoshenko recently, claimed German police refused his request for a blood test, and that a senior officer had apologised to him before allowing his party to fly on a later plane to South Korea.

Mr Yushchenko has urged parliament to investigate his behaviour: last year, Mr Lutsenko punched the mayor of Kiev at a national security council meeting.