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Ukraine's Yanukovych dismisses roundtable for parliamentary forces

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"A roundtable as a format for broad discussions is used in other situations. For example, when larger scale problems that cannot be resolved within parliament have to be discussed," the party leader said.
KIEV, July 3 (RIA Novosti) - The leader of Ukraine's opposition Party of Regions dismissed Monday the idea of holding roundtable talks for all parliamentary factions.

Ukrainian parliamentarians shunned earlier Monday a roundtable initiated by the president to end the three months of political wrangling in the ex-Soviet republic with only the Communist Party leader turning up.

And Party of Regions boss Viktor Yanukovych, President Viktor Yushchenko's former rival in the 2004 presidential race, said: "If the 'orange' coalition is not capable of legally electing authorities, then neither round nor square table talks will be of any help to them."

Yanukovych said the problems that should have been addressed by the coalition majority, which the three parties that represented the driving force of the 2004 "orange revolution" formed in June, and the opposition at the roundtable would be better addressed through a conciliation board.

"A roundtable as a format for broad discussions is used in other situations. For example, when larger scale problems that cannot be resolved within parliament have to be discussed," the party leader said.

But Yanukovych said his party could still join in a roundtable.

The Party of Regions is continuing a sit-in of the country's parliament to prevent the start of a plenary session in protest over a coalition formed by three other movements.

Following a similar move last week that paralyzed the legislature for a few days, about 15 party members settled in the Supreme Rada in the morning to stop anyone approaching the rostrum or the presidential seat.

The pro-Russia party decided to take this course of action after the "orange" trio of the pro-presidential Our Ukraine bloc, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and the Socialists had formed a coalition and agreed on nominees for the posts of prime minister and parliamentary speaker.

The Party of Regions gained the most seats in the Rada (186) after the March 26 elections, but was frozen out of negotiations between the three Western-leaning parties, which have an overall 243 seats.

If Ukraine's parliament fails to start work in the next three weeks, or fails to elect a prime minister and speaker, the president is entitled to dissolve it and call early elections.

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