Yushchenko launched roundtable talks last week with the leaders of all parliamentary factions, and prominent political and public figures to end the country's four-month political crisis. 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.
The anti-crisis coalition in parliament, comprising the Party of Regions, which received the largest number of parliamentary seats in a March election, Speaker Oleksandr Moroz's Socialist Party, and the Communists, nominated Yanukovych for prime minister earlier this month. Yushchenko has to respond to Yanukovych's nomination today.
The agreement proposed by the president has met with resistance from Yanukovych-led pro-Russian Party of Regions, due to the pro-Western policies it proposes, including joining NATO and securing Ukrainian as the country's sole official language.
The Party of Regions said Tuesday it would propose its own plan for a national unity pact on means of pulling Ukraine out of a four-month political crisis.
Presidential press secretary Irina Gerashchenko said the plan had been discussed at a Yushchenko-Yanukovych meeting late Tuesday, which ran more than seven hours.
According to Gerashchenko, the president wants that roundtable discussions with the leaders of parliamentary factions continue, and that the sides sign a national unity pact. A working group consisting of representatives of all Supreme Rada's factions gathered late Tuesday in an attempt to draft the final version of the document.
She said roundtable discussions would most likely continue Wednesday.
