Via Reuters: Ukraine Opposition Pulls Out of Talks
Ukraine’s opposition, whose insistence that it was cheated out of victory in a presidential election has brought thousands onto the streets, on Tuesday rejected talks in favor of “people power.”Its withdrawal from negotiations crushed earlier optimism that the outgoing president, Leonid Kuchma, might back a re-run to end the standoff over the election of his protege, prime minister Viktor Yanukovich.
International mediators headed back to Kiev for talks on Wednesday — the day when parliament and the Supreme Court could hand down their own verdicts on the dispute.
“The authorities, Kuchma and Yanukovich, used the talks to cheat,” opposition leader Taras Stetskyv told thousands of supporters of the losing presidential candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, in central Kiev.
“That is why the (opposition) Committee for National Salvation has decided to pull out of the talks. We are stopping talks with the authorities. We will talk with them only from the position of people power.”
