Victor Yushchenko told a press conference in Chernivtsi on Tuesday he “approves and appreciates” the unification of opposition forces in the Verkhovna Rada, according to the President`s press-office. 

“I am happy to say that a congress of the Our Ukraine Bloc, which is scheduled for March 31, will be held to unify several bloc members and to create one party with one statute,” he said.

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The President said it would help “minimize formal problems” which “impede political progress.”

He said the unification of the pro-presidential bloc and ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s bloc “gives the best answer how to harmonize Ukrainian politics.”

“It has always been a very difficult and ambitious challenge to consolidate Ukraine`s democratic movement,” he said.

Mr. Yushchenko reiterated that the country’s leaders should hold talks on how to create an effective system of checks and balances, the opposition being one of the key participants of this process.

“The opposition must be united, monolithic, undivided,” he said.