KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine’s prime minister Oleksiy Honcharuk submitted his resignation on Friday after an audio recording suggested he had criticized the president, but then appeared to suggest in comments to Reuters that he might stay in his job.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will consider the resignation letter later on Friday, the president’s office said.

Speculation over Honcharuk’s position has grown this week after a recording of a man discussing Zelenskiy’s purported lack of knowledge of economics was circulated on messaging channels, apparently at a meeting of the prime minister, finance minister and the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) in December.

Honcharuk said on Friday the recording had been doctored and was made up of different fragments of what had been said at government meetings.

“Its contents artificially create the impression that my team and I do not respect the president, who is our political leader,” Honcharuk said on social media. He did not say whether it was his voice heard in the recording.

Central bank officials and the finance minister have declined to comment on the recording.

Contacted by Reuters shortly after his announcement and asked whether he indeed intended to step down, Honcharuk said: “Do not jump to conclusions.”

Honcharuk, appointed by parliament last August after Zelenskiy’s party won a majority, declined to say whether he was using his resignation letter as a way of testing the president’s confidence in him.

Under Ukraine’s previous president, Honcharuk’s predecessor as prime minister, Volodymyr Groysman, also made threats to resign but ultimately stayed the course until last July’s parliamentary election which Zelenskiy’s party won.

Honcharuk announced his resignation in a message on Facebook where he also praised Zelenskiy as “a model of openness and decency”.

“However, in order to remove any doubts about our respect and trust in the President, I wrote a letter of resignation and handed it to the President with the right to submit it to Parliament,” he said.

Honcharuk appeared in parliament later on Friday and reaffirmed his respect for the president, adding that Ukraine must remain united in the face of what he called information attacks and manipulations.

He has set out an ambitious reform agenda since coming to office and secured provisional agreement from the IMF for a three-year-loan program seen as key to maintaining investor confidence and economic stability.

Source: Reuters

-Agencies