KIEV (AFP) – Ukraine's newly-appointed Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych said Tuesday that Ukraine might have to delay accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), which was expected this year, until 2007.

"We will absolutely have to settle these questions by 2007, if we don't manage to do so in 2006," said Yanukovych, who was named prime minister on Friday after four months of political turmoil in Ukraine, Interfax reported.

"We don't see the question of WTO accession as a competition with Russia," Yanukovych was quoted as saying by the online newspaper Ukrainskaya Pravda.

Pro-Russian Yanukovych made his comments before Ukrainian Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk, a strongly pro-Western diplomat who was re-appointed to his post on Tuesday. Tarasyuk disputed Yanukovych's statement, insisting on the need to complete accession to the 149-member world body this year "regardless of whether or not Russia becomes a member of the WTO."

The timing of Ukraine's WTO accession could have consequences for Russia's own accession bid, which is currently stalled over trade disputes with the United States, because of trade issues between the two neighbors.

Pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko and Yanukovych signed a far-ranging political pact -- one element of which was a commitment to join the WTO this year -- just before forming a government last week.

Yushchenko agreed to appoint Yanukovych, his rival in the 2004 presidential election, as prime minister after receiving assurances that the pro-Russian camp would not try to undermine the president's pro-Western policies.