Tomorrow the official inauguration ceremony for the new president of the Republic of Ukraine, V. Yanukovich, will be held. In Kiev, the question is being asked what his international direction will be, and whereas the foreign minister is showing signs of tempering his erstwhile pro-Western stance, EU sources say that the new president's first official trip will be to Brussels, not Moscow. The meeting with van Rompuy, Barroso and Ashton is set to take place on 1 March. Yanukovich will meet Medvedev only afterwards. Moscow is playing down questions about the order of the visits: after all, the pro-West former president, Yushchenko, visited Moscow first; and Medvedev is scheduled to meet Sarkozy at the beginning of March in Paris anyway. Lastly, it has become known that Medvedev will not attend tomorrow's ceremony in Kiev, and neither will Georgia's Saakashvili. Yanukovich's party has said that he has not yet decided which capital he will visit first, and that he has received invitations not only from Brussels and Moscow, but also from Washington. Meanwhile, the former Ukrainian foreign minister said that over the coming three years Ukraine shall pursue a “pragmatic” foreign policy and that it will desist from its earlier course of joining NATO: this was greeted with joy in Moscow. Lastly, Yanukovich has yet to decide who will replace Yu. Timoshenko as prime minister in the new government: Tigipko, Arsenyuk (former rivals in the presidential campaign) or Azarov, member of his own Party of Regions.
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