(RIA Novosti) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko on Wednesday reiterated his intent to hold roundtable talks with parliament on ways to pull the country out of a four-month political crisis, but did not provide any specific date.
"The president has reaffirmed his initiative to hold a roundtable discussion involving members of the public," his first deputy chief-of-staff, Ivan Vasyunyk, told a news conference, adding that the time of the discussion would be announced later.
He quoted Yushchenko as saying "the spirit of bolshevism and revanchism" reigning in the legislature posed a threat to Ukraine's "young democracy and parliamentarianism," but assured the president would be acting "strictly within the constitutional field, encouraging dialogue between different political forces."
Yushchenko refused to attend roundtable talks that Parliament Speaker Oleksandr Moroz had slated for Wednesday in a last-ditch attempt to secure a presidential approval for the pro-Russian majority coalition's prime ministerial nominee, Viktor Yanukovych.
The Yanukovych-led Party of Regions, which had received the largest number of parliamentary seats in a March election, formed the coalition earlier this month with Moroz's Socialist Party and the Communists, reports Trend.
Yulia Tymoshenko, the leader of an eponymous pro-Western bloc who backed Yushchenko during the 2004 "orange" revolution, also refused to take part in the crisis talks organized by Moroz, calling them a farce.
Yushchenko is now facing a dilemma between confirming his "orange" revolution rival as prime minister or dissolving parliament - the right he received after the assembly missed a 60-day deadline for forming a new government Tuesday. He has until August 2 to decide how to respond to Yanukovych's nomination.