KIEV, Jan. 24 – President Viktor Yanukovych will skip an annual Ukrainian panel discussion in Davos on Friday and return back to Kiev as opposition groups seek to mount an attack against his closest allies.

The groups have been pushing for an emergency session of Parliament next week to try to oust Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka and other top law enforcement officials.

The panel, entitled "Ukraine: East or West – The Wrong Dilemma?' is supposed to focus on exploring Ukraine’s relations with the European Union and the Customs Union, a Russia-led bloc.

Yanukovych, who had never missed the Davos panel in earlier years, on Thursday cited undisclosed “circumstances” that require his urgent presence in Kiev.

“I can hardly be blamed for not paying attention to this Ukrainian event - I have visited almost all of them,” Yanukovych said. “But due to the circumstances we have decided that I should be in Kiev.”

The only event Yanukovych is officially scheduled to attend in Kiev on Friday is a meeting of a committee that prepares celebration of the 1,025th anniversary of the baptism of the Kievan Rus, according to the presidential administration.

But a potentially more tangible threat to Yanukovych is coming from three opposition groups that have signed a petition to hold the emergency session on Parliament on January 29.

The groups seek to oust Pshonka, Internal Affairs Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko and SBU security service chief Oleksandr Yakymenko – all three are key allies of Yanukovych - citing an increased pressure against jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko.

Neither Yanukovych nor opposition groups control majority in the 450-seat Parliament, while a vote can be potentially decided by a group of 30-40 independent lawmakers.

Prosecutors seek life sentence for Tymoshenko for her alleged involvement in the murder of a powerful politician and businessman, Yevhen Shcherban, in 1996. She categorically denied any involvement and said the case was aimed at destroying her politically.

As a sign the presidential administration had been growing uneasy about the emergency session, opposition lawmakers began to face quiet resistance from Parliamentary Speaker Volodymyr Rybak.

“We demand the speaker to stop his silence game and to finally announce the date of the emergency session,” Arseniy Yatseniuk, the leader of the opposition Batkivshchyna party, said Thursday.

The tree opposition groups, including Batkivshchyna, Udar and Svoboda, collected 158 signatures on the petition, eight more than is required by regulations, to seek the session.

Vladyslav Lukianov, a senior Regions Party lawmaker, said Parliament’s secretariat, thoroughly studied the signatures and discovered that 10 of were allegedly fake.

“I call on the leaders of the internal affairs ministry and the security service to launch investigation to confirm the signatures,” Lukianov said in an interview with Channel 5.

Five of these signatures that had been questioned by Parliament’s secretariat are by lawmakers from Udar, including a signature by Udar leader Vitaliy Klichko.

“The secretariat for some reason decided that my personally put signature is not mine,” Klichko said in a statement. "I declare that it is my own signature put on the petition for the emergency session.”

Klichko, along with Yatseniuk, are keynote speakers at the Ukrainian panel in Davos on Friday.

Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara, Deputy Prime Minister Yury Boyko will represent the government at the panel, which is sponsored by Ukrainian billionaire Viktor Pinchuk. (tl/ez)