Kyiv confirms key appointments
June 19, 2014
President Petro Poroshenko recieved parliament backing for his nominations for foreign minister, central bank chief and prosecutor general on Thursday with each winning more than two thirds of lawmakers' votes.
Diplomat Pavlo Klimkin, 47, until now the ambassador to Germany, was approved as foreign minister by a 329-0 vote and replaces the outgoing Andriy Deshchytsia. Klimkin is a Moscow-educated physicist who entered the foreign service more than 20 years ago.
He has played a key role in negotiating association and free trade agreements with the European Union, which Ukraine is expected to sign later this month. He has also represented Kyiv in recent peace negotiations with Russia.
New central bank chief
The parliament also overwhelmingly approved the appointment of investment banker Valeria Hontareva as the new head of the central bank. She has worked in international and Ukrainian financial institutions for nearly two decades.
Hontareva is expected to play a major role in fixing Ukraine's struggling economy by implementing tough economic reforms required under the terms of a $17 billion (12.5 billion euro) International Monetary Fund (IMF) rescue loan.
Finally, parliament also unanimously approved first deputy prime minister Vitaly Yarema, 50, as prosecutor general. Viewed by analysts as one of the country's most respected security chiefs, he has vowed to regain control of Crimea, the strategic Black Sea peninsula annexed by Russia in March.
hc/pfd (Reuters, AFP)