Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko launched roundtable talks last week with the leaders of all parliamentary factions, and prominent political and public figures. The parties to the talks failed to reach a compromise on a final document laying down the principles for forming a new national unity coalition in parliament.
Yevheniy Kushnarev, a senior member of the Party of Regions, led by Yushchenko's former arch-rival Viktor Yanukovych, said five issues in the original presidential version of the document had caused divergences within Supreme Rada factions.
"We have looked through the whole document and defined five issues on which the parties [to the talks] continue to disagree."
The areas of contention are the federalization of Ukraine, accession to NATO, granting official status to the Russian language, creating a single Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and the principles of forming a parliamentary coalition.
Socialist Party faction leader Vasyl Tsushko, who is part of a working group on the final version of the pact, said the text of the document had almost been agreed, but that disagreements on Ukraine's relations with NATO would be included on list of differences in an appendix to the document.
"The document is ready for signing," Tsushko said. "The factions' leaders should sign it in the afternoon."
The anti-crisis coalition, comprising the Party of Regions, which received the largest number of parliamentary seats in a March election, Moroz's Socialist Party, and the Communists, nominated Yanukovych for prime minister earlier this month.
President Yushchenko is now facing a dilemma between confirming his "orange" revolution rival Yanukovych as prime minister or dissolving parliament - a right he received after the assembly missed a 60-day deadline for forming a new government on Tuesday. He has until August 2 to decide how to respond to Yanukovych's nomination.
The presidential press service said earlier Tuesday that Yushchenko was holding consultations on the dissolution of parliament.
