KIEV, Nov. 26 – Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko Wednesday threatened to resume talks with the opposition Regions Party for creation of a coalition if Our Ukraine, President Viktor Yushchenko’s group, continues to fail to support her.

The talks may resume next week unless Our Ukraine changes its mind within the next few days and decides to rejoin the coalition with Tymoshenko that officially collapsed on Oct. 2.

“If the democratic coalition is not renewed by the end of the week and severe financial crisis keeps spreading in the world and in Ukraine we will be looking for other options and other opportunities,” Tymoshenko said at a press conference.

Our Ukraine quickly rejected the ultimatum, accusing Tymoshenko of plans to create the coalition with the Regions Party and the Communist Party, a vehemently pro-Russian group, for creating “the pro-Kremlin majority.”

“Tymoshenko’s comments about her readiness to create a coalition with any group in Parliament signal her intentions to create the coalition with Yanukovych and the Communists,” Viacheslav Kyrylenko, the leader of Our Ukraine, said.

Kyrylenko said the prime minister “must first of all rescue the Ukrainian economy from the crisis whose scale in Ukraine is blamed on Tymoshenko herself and financial and economic ministers that by 100% represent the Tymoshenko Bloc.”

The coalition involving Tymoshenko’s and Yushchenko’s groups collapsed on October 2 after Tymoshenko had unexpectedly joined forces with the Regions Party to approve a barrage of carefully prepared bills that undermine powers of the president.

In response, Our Ukraine withdrew from the coalition, a move that had later triggered a chain of events leading to a decree by the president dismissing Parliament and calling early election.

People familiar with situation said Tymoshenko was planning in October to create the coalition with the Regions Party in which she would continue to hold the post of the prime minister, while Vikor Yanukovych, the leader of Regions, would get the post of the speaker of Parliament.

The deal apparently also anticipated that Tymoshenko, now the most popular political figure, would not run at the next presidential election letting Yanukovych become the president in early 2010, the people said.

But the deal collapsed after Yanukovych had suddenly demanded the post of the prime minister, a concession that Tymoshenko apparently was not willing to make.

Tymoshenko has been waging a vigorous campaign against Yushchenko’s decree dismissing Parliament as analysts said she would probably get ousted from the post of the prime minister after the snap election.

Yushchenko postponed the decree earlier this month as Parliament had to act to approve anti-crisis legislation for Ukraine to qualify for $16.4 billion emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund. (tl/ez)