Yushchenko and Yanukovych at a previous meeting (epa)
June 15, 2006 -- President Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine bloc announced today that it was in talks with the pro-Russian Party of the Regions on forming a governing coalition.
But it also said the door was still open for talks with its former Orange Revolution allies.
The Party of the Regions, led by Viktor Yanukovych, was the biggest vote winner in inconclusive March parliamentary elections. But the three former Orange Revolution allies -- Our Ukraine, the bloc of former Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko, and the Socialist Party -- together hold more seats in parliament.
The three Orange parties held weeks of negotiations but failed to agree on a coalition. Tymoshenko's party and the Socialists called negotiations with the Party of the Regions a betrayal.
Yanukovych, whose fraud-tainted attempt to win the presidency in 2004 sparked the Orange Revolution, predicted a coalition will be formed by June 20.
(Interfax-Ukraine, "Ukrayinska pravda," AP)
The Key Players
BEHIND THE IMAGES: Click on the links below to read RFE/RL's profiles of some of the key players in Ukraine's March 26 legislative elections:
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