KIEV, Nov. 22 - Imprisoned opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko will be allowed to leave her prison temporarily for medical treatment for serious health problems including severe back pain, President Viktor Yanukovych said on Tuesday.

"I was informed that the system [of medical treatment in jail]... is not up to the required standards. So this treatment or medical services will have to be provided in medical institutions in Kiev, in the coming days, either today or tomorrow," Yanukovych said at a press conference.

The comment comes a day after Nina Karpacheva, a member of Yanukovych’s Regions Party and Ukraine’s human rights envoy, said Tymoshenko had "extremely serious" health problems.

The envoy said that during a visit to her Kiev prison cell on Sunday night, Tymoshenko, 50, could not get out of bed, BBC reported. She said Tymoshenko needed to be examined and treated outside the prison.

This comes days after Tymoshenko has asked international medical organizations to help examine and treat her worsening health conditions.

Tymoshenko is reportedly suffering from severe back pain and from mysterious bruises on her body. She says she doesn’t trust government-appointed doctors and accuses authorities of refusing to let independent medical experts see her.

Tymoshenko’s top aide Oleksandr Turchynov said she has turned to the International Committee of the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders and asked them to intervene to help her get examined and treated properly.

Last month, a court in Kiev had found Tymoshenko guilty of exceeding her powers in signing the 2009 gas contracts with Russia and sentenced her to seven years in prison.

Tymoshenko was also ordered to pay a compensation of 1.5 billion hryvnia ($187 million) lost by the state-run Naftogaz as a result of the deal.

Tymoshenko denounced the court ruling as a politically-motivated prosecution of the opposition leader.

Polish and Swedish foreign ministers are to meet Ukraine's richest man, billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, in a new bid to secure the release of Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, Reuters reported Monday.

The new attempt by European Union members to put pressure on Yanukovych to bring about the release of his political rival came as a Ukrainian human rights monitor expressed concern over Tymoshenko's health.

An official source in Stockholm told Reuters that Sweden's Carl Bildt and Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski would have talks with Akhmetov, at an international soccer match in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday on important political issues.

Akhmetov, a steel and mining tycoon whose net wealth is estimated at $16 billion by Forbes, bankrolled Yanukovych’s election campaign in 2009-10 and is one of his most influential backers.

The source in Sweden said Sikorski and Bildt would meet Akhmetov in Donetsk on Wednesday. Akhmetov owns Shakhtar Donetsk football club whose team is playing Porto of Portugal in a champions league match.

The EU has condemned the trial as politically-motivated and warned Yanukovych that an association agreement is now in jeopardy.

EU members Poland and Sweden, which have led a drive to improve the ex-Soviet republic's ties with the bloc, are now trying to stop the affair dealing a death blow to the agreement. (tl/ez)