(13 Jan 2006) SHOTLIST

1. Wide shot of the House of Government
2. Mid shot of entrance
3. Wide shot of journalist interviewing Yury Yekhanurov, Prime minister of Ukraine
4. Cutaway of a national seal
5. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Yury Yekhanurov, Prime minister of Ukraine:
"There is a scheme how to solve this very complicated gas conflict. It is drafted by the Protocol (signed in Moscow). Now we prepare contracts in its ranks. But we also want to make a superstructure in form of inter-government agreement and to sign it as it has been practiced year by year".
6. Cutaway of hands
7. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Yury Yekhanurov, Prime minister of Ukraine:
"In this case I see a direct betrayal of national interests. In order to satisfy his vain-glorious ambitions in course of the election campaign one is placing on stake national sovereignty".
8. Yekhanurov taking seat at table

STORYLINE

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov said on Thursday that his government would formalise a gas agreement with Russia despite the political crisis that the deal set off, but vowed the state would never give up control of its pipeline network.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Yekhanurov said the roiling political crisis would not prevent his Cabinet from formalising a key gas agreement with Russia, which many feared could be in limbo if the Cabinet had been immobilised.

"There is a scheme how to solve this very complicated gas conflict," he said.

The premier predicted the formal agreement based on last week's deal, which nearly doubles the prices of natural gas imports for Ukraine, could be
signed in late January or early February.

Earlier this week, parliament voted to sack Yekhanurov and his Cabinet over the deal with Russia's state-controlled gas monopoly, which resulted in nearly doubling the price of imported natural gas for Ukraine, but the government has called the legislature's move illegal.

The effects of the parliament's vote were not clear because Ukraine is in the process of implementing constitutional changes that would allow the parliament to fire the government.

Previously, that power was held by the president.

Government officials say, and some opposition politicians acknowledge, that the intent of the parliament's vote was to paralyze the government in the run-up to parliamentary elections in March.

Yekhanurov lamented that the vote was backed by the bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko, his predecessor as premier and a former ally of Yushchenko.

He called that "a direct betrayal of national interests."

Tymoshenko's party, however, has vowed to seek annulment of the gas deal.

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