Lithuanian president to see Tymoshenko in hospital

(VILNIUS) - Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said Monday her Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yanukovych had promised she could visit Ukraine's jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko in hospital this week.

"It seems likely that she will be moved to Kharkiv hospital tomorrow," following German efforts on her behalf, Grybauskaite told journalists in Vilnius.

Grybauskaite said she had discussed Tymoshenko's case in a telephone conversation with Yanukovych, adding, "We have agreed with the president that I will have a chance to meet her in Kharkiv."

Tymoshenko, an icon of Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution and arch-rival of Yanukovych, was jailed for seven years last October on charges of abuse of power after a trial bitterly criticised by the West as appearing politically motivated.

Since then she has complained of debilitating pain but refused to be treated by Ukrainian doctors following the contamination in hospital of a fellow jailed cabinet member.

Ukraine has refused to let her out of the country and the resulting row has threatened to lead to a boycott by EU officials of the Euro 2012 football tournament Ukraine begins co-hosting with Poland on June 8.

Tymoshenko agreed Friday with the visiting head of a German clinic to be treated in a local hospital by a German doctor as well as Ukrainian medics in a move Kiev hopes could ease the tension with the European Union.

Grybauskaite said it could also encourage Central and Eastern European leaders to attend a regional summit in Yalta this weekend that many of them have shunned in protest against Tymoshenko's jailing.

"Geopolitically, Ukraine's integration process is important to the whole of Europe and Ukraine itself. Europe must demand protection of human rights from all countries but without double standards," she said.