KYIV. Feb 4 (Interfax-AVN) - President Viktor Yushchenko signed a decree appointing Oleksandr Turchinov head of the Ukrainian Security Service on Friday.
Turchinov, born in 1964, is a doctor of economic sciences, a professor, a People's deputy in the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, a member in two parliament committees - the committees on regulations and deputies' ethics and organization of parliamentary work - and first deputy chairman of the Batkivshchina party.
From 1990-1991, Turchinov served as editor-in-chief of the UNA-Press APN information agency's Ukrainian office. In 1991, he became head of the International Relations, Economy, Politics and Law Institute. In 1992, he was appointed chairman of the Dnipropetrovsk regional administration's committee on de-monopolization.
In 1993, he served as the prime minister's councilor on microeconomics, after which, in 1994, he was appointed general director of the Institute of Economic Reforms and head of the shadow economy study laboratory at the Russian Institute in the People's Academy of Sciences.
He was a people's deputy in the third parliament from 1998-2000, and leader of the Batkivshchina faction. He also served as chairman of the committee on budget issues.
He then served as a people's deputy in the 4th parliament from April 2002 in the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc.