KIEV, Dec. 10 – President Viktor Yushchenko on Thursday called for the dismissal of Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko for what he argued was a “failure” to fight corruption over the past four years.

Yushchenko made the call in a letter to Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who had recently positioned herself as an anti-corruption crusader ahead of election.

This is the second time that Yushchenko has asked for the dismissal of Lutsenko over the past eight months, but the minister survived the first call due to political support from Tymoshenko.

“From the legal point of view, the president has little influence on this position,” Yevhen Korniychuk, the first deputy justice minister and a Tymoshenko ally, said.

The minister can be dismissed if the prime minister sends a request to Parliament and majority of lawmakers back the move. The dismissal can also be initiated by a group of lawmakers.

Tymoshenko shielded Lutsenko and helped him to survive a humiliating incident in Germany in May when German police had briefly detained him apparently for a drunken melee.

German police detained Lutsenko and his 18-year old son on May 4 in Frankfurt after they had clashed with Lufthansa crew. The crew barred Lutsenko from boarding the plane to Seoul suspecting that he had been drunk.

But Lutsenko and his son resisted the crew and later fought four German police officers, apparently making racially charged insults and causing minor injuries among the officers. Police used force to subdue, handcuff and detain both Lutsenkos.

Tymoshenko benefited from shielding and keeping the seriously weakened and politically dependent Lutsenko ahead of the election because the minister controls 300,000-strong police force, which is seen by Ukrainian politicians as a major asset.

Yushchenko made the call a day after Lutsenko had walked out of a meeting with the president and other law enforcement chiefs at the presidential office.

“I have to say that today the law enforcement organs continue to work ineffectively,” Yushchenko said in the letter to Tymoshenko. “Repeated attempts to turn the interior minister’s attention towards a more active work are being ignored.”

Yushchenko said that Ukraine had slipped to the No. 146 in the list of the world’s safest and most lawful countries in 2009, down from the No. 99 in 2006.

At the same time, he argued, the number of criminal investigations into corruption by police had dropped by 13.9%, while the number of those brought to justice declined by 15.4%.

Lutsenko, who is expected to have a meeting with Tymoshenko on Friday to discuss his political future, sought to defend himself.

“Can the president of any country say that his police force is a gang?” Lutsenko said in an interview with Channel 5 television late Thursday. “There is no conflict between Yushchenko and Lutsenko. There is a conflict between Yushchenko and 300,000 police officers.”

Yushchenko “is chopping off a branch that he and - the whole country - sit on!” Lutsenko said. “As long as I am the minister of interior I will not allow anyone, even the president, to spit into the soul of a police officer.” (tl/ez)