OREANDA-NEWS. On April 28, 2009 The Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko has held a meeting with First US Deputy Secretary of State James B. Steinberg.

During the talks the First Deputy Secretary of State announced that “the Government of Ukraine is well aware of the challenges of the global financial crisis and knows how to weather it”. “On the example of actions performed by your Government we saw you possess an understanding how uneasy are the challenges and readiness to solve urgent problems,” the First Deputy Secretary of State said.

James Steinberg noted on the one hand the crisis means strong challenges and on the other - it means an opportunity for strong leaders to demonstrate their leading role in order to head the country to a new higher level. According to him, for Ukraine one of the directions of activity in the issue of overcoming the crisis is furthering cooperation with the International Monetary Fund.

In her turn, Yulia Tymoshenko thanked to James Steinberg for support in maintaining cooperation between Ukraine and the International Monetary Fund. “For Ukraine, in these hard crisis times it is a main strategic line,” Yulia Tymoshenko noted. The Prime Minister underlined cooperation with the IMF was being established hard through the political turmoil tearing the country nowadays: “to establish relations was not easy when the so-called assistance was rendered from all the sides, but the Government has managed to make impossible to continue such cooperation, as cooperation with the IMF is viewed as a real bail-out program for Ukraine”.

Besides, Yulia Tymoshenko noted today the Government has the political will to carry out structure, long-term and complicated reforms envisaged by joint cooperation program with the IMF.