EU Sets Deadline For Tymoshenko Release

Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko

Ukrainian parliament members say EU envoys have given parliament one week to pass a law allowing jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to seek medical treatment in Germany if Kyiv wants to sign an EU Association Agreement later this month.

Ruslan Koshulinsky, the deputy chairman of Ukraine's parliament, said former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and ex-European Parliament President Pat Cox gave legislators the deadline on November 7.

Deputies have been debating a law that would allow convicts to receive medical treatment abroad.

Tymoshenko -- sentenced last year to seven years in prison on abuse of office charges that the West says are politically motivated -- is suffering from a back ailment.

Ukraine wants to sign the key EU integration agreement at the EU's November 28-29 Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius.

A spokeswoman, Olha Lappo, for leading opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk, confirmed that Kwasniewski and Cox gave the deadline for next November 13.

With reporting by Interfax and AP