Ukraine: president's party starts talks with pro-Russian party

The pro-Western Our Ukraine party also insisted that the door was still open to talks with its former Orange Revolution allies.

Photo: Ukraine: president's party starts talks with pro-Russian party

Negotiations among the three estranged parties that led the 2004 mass uprisings against election fraud collapsed over the weekend, prompting Yushchenko's party to open talks with the Party of Regions.

Ukraine's government has been paralyzed since the March parliamentary election ended without a decisive victor. The Party of Regions, which dominates in the Russian-speaking east and south, won the most votes. But it was overshadowed by the former Orange allies, who would hold more seats in the 450-member parliament if they could work out their differences.

The other two Orange parties have called negotiations with Party of Regions a betrayal.

The Party of Regions is led by Viktor Yanukovych, whose ballot-stuffing attempt to win the 2004 presidency sparked the Orange Revolution, the AP reports.