KIEV, Nov. 17 ??“ Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, in disagreement with President Viktor Yushchenko??™s criticism of the poor state of the housing sector, on Friday left early a meeting of Ukraine??™s top security body, media reported.

Yanukovych urged the National Security and Defense Council, Yushchenko??™s top advisory body, to skip discussions over the housing sector, saying the issue is the authority of the government.

The development is the latest wave of sharp disagreements between the president and the prime minister over their constitutional powers to draft domestic and foreign policies that could evolve into political crisis.

The Yanukovych government, ever since it had been formed in August, was aggressively pushing to reduce powers of the presidential administration beyond controversial constitutional amendments enacted earlier this year.

The amendments have been granting more powers to the prime minister in drafting domestic and economic policies, while leaving foreign and defense policies in the hands of the president.

But Yanukovych has pushed hard to define Ukraine??™s foreign policy and even tried to postpone the country??™s accession to NATO, Yushchenko??™s cornerstone policy.

The attempt to discuss the state of the housing sector shows that Yushchenko has been seeking to use the National Security and Defense Council as a tool that would force the government to speed up domestic reforms.

The move has been apparently interpreted by the Yanukovych government as an attempt to intervene with the government??™s economic policy, and triggered the backlash.

???The [National Security and Defense Council] entered the area of the authority of the Cabinet,??? Mykhaylo Chechetov, a Yanukovych loyalist, said. ???The housing sector is totally the area of responsibility of the Cabinet.???

Yushchenko argued the state of the housing and utilities sector is in such a bad state that it threatens the national security of Ukraine and requires a quick action.

About 100,000 people in a small city of Alchevsk, the Donetsk region, were left without heat for three weeks during the freezing cold last winter after its heat supply system had collapsed. This underscored the need to reform the sector.

???The policy in the housing and utilities sector is not completely transparent,??? Yushchenko said before the security council meeting. ???Let??™s take a look at this [problem] and see what must be done starting next year.??? (tl/ez)