KIEV, March 3 – Ukraine’s pro-Western foreign minister was dismissed by Parliament on Tuesday after a group of lawmakers loyal to Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko joined forces with pro-Russian opposition groups to back the motion.

The sacking of Volodymyr Ohryzko, an ally of President Viktor Yushchenko, may increase tensions between the president and the prime minister, making it harder to approve bills needed for resuming borrowing from the International Monetary Fund.

Iryna Vannikova, the spokeswoman for Yushchenko, said the dismissal of Ohryzko was “untimely and ungrounded.”

“It absolutely makes no sense to weaken the country’s foreign policy and to create new sources of tensions just in the middle of the economic crisis,” Vannikova said.

The motion was approved by 250 lawmakers, including 49 lawmakers loyal to Tymoshenko, in the 450-seat Parliament.

The development comes days after Yushchenko and Tymoshenko have agreed to cooperate on approval of a number of bills aimed at improving the economy and to qualify for $1.84 billion installment from the IMF.

The installment is part of $16.4 billion loan that the IMF has approved last year and that analysts said was crucial for Ukraine to avoid default on foreign debt obligations.

Tymoshenko said Tuesday she was happy with the dismissal of Ohryzko.

“As the minister, Ohryzko did not suit me radically,” Tymoshenko said. “This is a person that is not professional, a person that has been making provocations against the government.”

Ohryzko, at the pressure from the pro-Russian Regions Party, on Tuesday addressed lawmakers on the recent U.N. court ruling establishing maritime border between Ukraine and Romania.

But the timing of the grilling suggested that Ohryzko may have been really targeted for recently warning Russian Ambassador Viktor Chernomyrdin on possible expulsion following to his recent rude remarks about Ukraine.

The vote shows that there may be a pro-Russian majority emerging in Parliament that would change Ukraine’s foreign policy away from being pro-Western.

“The majority in Parliament and the next president of Ukraine are leaning towards pro-Russian policy,” Ihor Popov, the head of the Committee of Ukrainian Voters, said. “Anyway, over the past months the policy has been moving away from the Western vector towards the Eastern one.”

Tymoshenko and Regions Party leader Viktor Yanukovych currently have the best chance of wining the next presidential election in January 2010.

Our Ukraine-People’s Self-defense, Tymoshenko’s coalition partner, on Tuesday criticized the dismissal of Ohryzko.

Taras Stetskiv, an Our Ukraine lawmaker, said that Tymoshenko has been probably seeking to increase cooperation with the Regions Party and perhaps even to create a new coalition.

“The main goal was to provoke us to quit the coalition and to open way for the talks with the Regions Party,” Stetskiv said. “They seek to focus on making amendments to the constitution, canceling popular vote for the election of the president and to eventually share power between the two – Yanukovych and Tymoshenko.” (tl/ez)