KIEV: The Ukrainian Parliament Speaker Volodymyr Rybak has said that the country’s President Viktor Yanukovych has accepted the idea of a coalition government with the participation of opposition leaders.
“The president of Ukraine agrees to a coalition government. There is still a possibility,” Rybak told a delegation of NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly led by Hugh Bayley.
Earlier, the leader of the opposition Fatherland Party Arseniy Yatsenyuk rejected the offer extended by the president to take the role of prime minister in any possible coalition government.
But Yatsenyuk said that the opposition was ready to assume responsibility but only if it was allowed to form its own government.
Last week, Yanukovych also expressed readiness to hold a debate with the leader of the opposition party Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform, Vitaly Klitschko, on one of the national TV channels to discuss the political turmoil in the country.
However, Klitschko called for the president’s resignation as a pre-condition to attend the debate.