KIEV, Jan. 21 – Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on Wednesday questioned the power of Ukraine’s top security body to make changes to the recent natural gas deal between Russia and Ukraine that she had brokered.

The National Security and Defense Council, the body under President Viktor Yushchenko, is to get together on Friday to decide whether the deal meets “national interests.”

Yushchenko criticized the deal for doubling gas prices that Ukraine has to pay in the first quarter to $360/1,000 cubic meters from $179.5/1,000 cu m in 2008.