KIEV, Oct. 10 – Parliament on Friday approved Petro Poroshenko, a pro-Western figure, as the country’s new foreign minister, ending a seven-month vacancy on a key government post and signaling consolidation of foreign policy.

Poroshenko’s nomination was approved by 240 lawmakers in the 450-seat Parliament, underscoring a rare case of unity among lawmakers loyal to President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

This is suggesting the country’s foreign policy may face fewer hurdles that had been so far associated with domestic politics.

“He’s gotten a chance to be a super-effective minister taking into account political support from within the country,” Kostiantyn Hryshchenko, Ukraine’s ambassador to Russia, told the Liberty Radio on Saturday.

The post was vacant since March 3, when Tymoshenko’s lawmakers had attacked Yushchenko by joining forces with opposition groups to dismiss Volodymyr Ohryzko, who had been pushing hard for Ukraine’s accession to NATO.

Yushchenko, who nominated Poroshenko on Wednesday, praised the approval, saying that Ukraine’s foreign ministry will have to “catch up” in relations with the United States, the European Union and other countries.

“Today we have to catch up, to do the work that we have failed to do over the past six months,” Yushchenko said. “This is a good and major signal that this part of the Ukrainian policy – the foreign policy – will soon pick up pace and will protect Ukrainian interests around the world.”

Poroshenko will supervise preparation of between five and seven visits of heads of state to Ukraine by the end of the year, and will also join Yushchenko in his foreign trips.

Meanwhile, Poroshenko has faced his first foreign policy challenge on Friday, when Russian media have speculated that the U.S. may plant anti-missile radars in Ukraine after recently cancelling similar projects in the Czech Republic and Poland.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov issued harsh comments, expressing “surprise” over the alleged plans, while the U.S. has later issued a statement saying the plans have never been discussed with Ukraine.

Poroshenko cited the constitution that bans establishing foreign bases on the Ukrainian soil. “I think this would be unconstitutional,” he said.

Ukraine has two powerful radars: one based in Mukacheve, near the border with the European Union, and another one based in Sevastopol.

Both radars – although not as super precision type that had been planned to be built in the Czech Republic - have been used by the Soviet Union as part of its early anti-missile attack warning system.

Russia has been renting the radars since 1991 until completing its own radars, and Ukraine has been suggesting that the U.S. or the European Union could now be renting the radars.

Poroshenko, who now heads the National Bank of Ukraine’s Council, a strategic policy body, is thought to have more political support for the appointment, analysts said.

Poroshenko, once Yushchenko’s closest ally, was the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, the top security body under the president, in 2005.

Poroshenko’s clash with Tymoshenko, then the prime minister, led to the dismissal of both in September 2005. Now Poroshenko, one of the richest people in Ukraine that controls assets in shipbuilding, automobile manufacturing, confectionaries and media, enjoys support from Tymoshenko.

For the past three years Poroshenko has been heading the National Bank of Ukraine’s Council, a strategic policy body with little impact on the bank’s day-to-day operation. (tl/ez)