VILNIUS - Valdas Adamkus left on Wednesday morning to Kiev to help mediate the political crisis which has worsened over the past couple days. This is second trip to Ukraine in one week.
Adamkus joins Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs Javier Solana.
Their first meeting reportedly took place with opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko in the latter's campaign headquarters. Adamkus' spokeswoman Rita Grumadaite told journalists that Adamkus, Kwasniewski and Solana arrived there from the Polish Embassy, where they coordinated negotiating positions since Wednesday morning.
Grumadaite said that negotiating positions were finalized, but she refused to specify them, the Baltic News Service reported.
Adamkus told Lithuanian journalists on a Kiev-bound airplane on Wednesday morning that the tactics of today's talks would be setting both candidates - Moscow-backed PM Viktor Yanukovich and opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko - at the table of negotiations. In his words, the two have refused to attend any type of talks.
International mediators are believed to attempt persuading leaders of the conflicting sides to hold repeated ballot in the second round of presidential elections to determine the true winner of the presidential mandate.
The pro-Western Yushchenko is accusing Moscow-backed Yanukovich of stealing the victory in the second round of presidential elections on Nov. 19. International observer said the poll contained "massive fraud."
Adamkus and Kwasniewski were in Kiev last Friday at an invitation of Ukraine's outgoing President Leonid Kuchma. Although the sides adopted a memorandum not to resort to violence and to set up working groups to solve specific problems, talks between the two have collapsed. Yushchenko has pulled out of negotiations, the Ukraine's Parliament passed a no-confidence vote in the government, which Yanukovich heads.
