KYIV. June 26 (Interfax) - Ukrainian Parliament Speaker Oleksandr Turchynov did not invite any mediators to join talks aimed at restoring peace to the country's eastern regions, Turchynov's press service told Interfax on Thursday.
"Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Turchynov did not hold any negotiations with terrorists when he held the post of acting president of Ukraine. Turchynov himself said this in public as terrorists attempted to put forth ultimatums to the Ukrainian authorities. That is why he never needed any mediators," the press service said.
Party of Regions MP Nestor Shufrych said earlier that he and Ukrainian Choice public organization leader Viktor Medvedchuk had been invited to take part in negotiations to settle the conflict in eastern Ukraine by Turchynov, who held the post of Ukraine's acting president at that time.
"Viktor Medvedchuk and I represented the group of mediators at the talks with representatives of the self-proclaimed "Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics". We had been doing it for a whole month," Shufrych was quoted as saying by the Hromadske TV website.
Turchynov wanted Medvedchuk to take part in those talks because the public organization's head had previously held consultations with the leadership of Russia and Ukraine, he said.