(27 Nov 2004)

1. Wide shot of roundtable talks
2. Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko (on left, orange tie) and Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski
3. Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma (blue shirt and blue tie) and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana (beard)
4. Other participants
5. Photographers
6. Various of roundtable
7. SOUNDBITE: (Russian) Leonid Kuchma, Ukrainian President:
"Thanks to all of you for taking part in this roundtable. Our work here is to find a compromise that may help to resolve this very difficult situation in Ukraine today following the presidential elections. I think that by the efforts and wishes of all those taking part in these talks and the fact of meeting face-to-face, out of this we can find a compromise."
8. Photographers, pan to table
9. Yushchenko meets Solana, they shake hands
10. Kwasniewski hugging then shaking hands with Yushchenko
11. Solana, Yushchenko and Kwasniewski at photo opportunity
12. Various of Solana and Yushchenko seated

STORYLINE:

Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma has met the two candidates at the centre of Ukraine's presidential election crisis, along with key European envoys, as opposition supporters blockaded government buildings on Friday.

The envoys arrived in Kiev in an effort to help solve the political crisis that has engulfed the ex-Soviet republic since Sunday's presidential election, which the opposition and the West criticised as fraudulent.

Kuchma's government certified Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych as the winner, but Western-leaning Viktor Yushchenko claims he was robbed of victory.

The meeting also included European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus and Boris Gryzlov, speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament. Jan Kubis, the head of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and Volodymyr Lytvyn, speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, also took part.

Earlier, Kuchma thanked the European envoys for "making every effort so that these negotiations take place not on the street - which can never give a positive result - but around a negotiating table," the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying after meeting Solana and Kwasniewski.

"The situation is more than difficult," Kwasniewski told journalists.

Yushchenko had previously said he would negotiate only with Kuchma, and that the main condition for holding talks was the president's acknowledgment that the election was invalid. But Kuchma hasn't shown any sign of backing down.

Earlier Solana, Kwasniewski and Yushchenko had held talks at the opposition's headquarters.

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