EU postpones Ukraine meeting

The European Union announced Tuesday it is postponing a scheduled meeting in Brussels this week with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Observers immediately said the move was an apparent protest of the jailing of opposition leader and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, the Financial Times reported. The two sides were planning to meet Thursday to address outstanding issues in an "association agreement" that would give Ukraine greater access to the EU's single market and further cement ties to the bloc. Instead the EU said the meeting would be put off "until a later date when conditions are more conducive to making progress on bilateral relations." Both the EU and the United States have said Tymoshenko's seven-year jail sentence for exceeding her authority amounted to a politically motivated and selective use of the judicial system. The indefinite postponement of the EU meeting reflects growing frustration in the west with the treatment meted out to the former prime minister.