KIEV, March 29 – Parliamentary Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn on Monday criticized calls for Ukraine to join the union with Russia and Belarus, adding the government must work to strengthen the country’s independence.

The comment, a reaction to the calls made by Volodymyr Semynozhenko, deputy prime minister, shows the governing coalition is split, making it hard for the government to move forward on this issue.

“I believe Ukrainian politicians, especially those installed in the government, must forget election campaign period when their thoughts haven’t been very much restrained,” Lytvyn said.

“One has to learn to live in an independent state and to prove that we can be a country with real, not declarative, sovereignty,” Lytvyn said.

The calls for the union were also sharply criticized by the For Ukraine opposition party, which urged President Viktor Yanukovych, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and Foreign Minister Kostiantyn Hryshchenko to denounce Semynozhenko’s remarks.

Semynozhenko, in a television interview on Sunday, said Ukraine should decide whether to join the Union State, which Russia has been unsuccessfully assembling with Belarus for more than a decade.

He argued the European Union, which Ukraine has been so far seeking to join, has not been willing to accept the country as a member, and said joining the alliance with Russia would boost its economy.

His comments came days after Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, at talks with his Ukrainian counterpart Azarov, suggested that closer political integration with Russia would allow Ukraine to qualify for lower natural gas prices.

Russia’s talks over the Union State with Belarus have been on and off for more than a decade, but the countries have failed make any major progress. Minsk recently filed a lawsuit against Russia for its decision to hike duties on oil exports to Belarus.

Moscow last week rejected Kiev’s plea for lowering natural gas prices, but Putin had argued that closer political integration with Russia would probably help Ukraine reach that goal. (tl/ez)