KIEV, May 17 (RIA Novosti) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko will meet with members of a future parliamentary coalition if an agreement has been finalized, his press secretary said Wednesday.
The mooted coalition, which could bring an end to the parliamentary limbo that has enveloped Ukraine since March 26 elections, comprises former premier Yulia Tymoshenko's eponymous bloc, the pro-presidential Our Ukraine bloc and the Socialist Party.
"The president's next meeting within the 'troika' format will take place only if a political coalition agreement has been agreed," press secretary Irina Gerashchenko said. "This is the president's demand."
She said the president was optimistic about the future coalition and expected it to be formed in late May.
"The president is confident that all the disagreements will be ironed out by the end of May," she said, adding that the president hoped his meeting with coalition members would take place next week.
Negotiations on forming a coalition, as mandated in the country's constitution, have been complicated over disagreements on who should be appointed prime minister, and over Tymoshenko's refusal to deal with the pro-Russia Party of Regions, which came first in the parliamentary elections but has been frozen out of the coalition.
