Ukraine's prospects of signing a potentially historic deal with the European Union were dealt a possibly fatal blow Wednesday after parliament failed to agree a bill that would allow the release of jailed ex-premier Yulia Tymoshenko.
The release of the opposition leader is a key condition set by EU leaders for Ukraine signing an Association Agreement -- a first step toward EU membership -- at a summit in late November, but an extraordinary session of parliament ended without deputies even taking a vote on the issue.
Speaker Volodymyr Rybak declared the parliamentary session closed after a working group of the ruling Regions Party and opposition failed to agree a joint text for the bill.
The bill would have allowed convicts to leave Ukraine for treatment abroad and thus permit Tymoshenko, who suffers from back pain, to go to a clinic in Germany.
Rybak's announcement was followed by cries of "Shame!" from the staunchly pro-EU opposition, who accused President Viktor Yanukovych of never wanting to sign the agreement in the first place.
"The authorities do not want to sign the Association Agreement," said the leader of the opposition UDAR (Punch) party, world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko.
The European Parliament's two special envoys on Ukraine, Poland's former president Aleksander Kwasniewski and former European Parliament president Pat Cox, were present in Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhova Rada, to witness the failure of the session.
The two EU statesmen immediately afterwards went into talks with parliamentary faction leaders, but their content was not clear.
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