KIEV, Ukraine -- Senior Ukrainian officials opened talks Wednesday in Kiev that they portrayed as an effort to end the country's 6-month-old political crisis, but their initial remarks suggested little compromise by the provisional government.
A "road map" put forth by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe calls for national dialogue as a first step toward resolving the escalating tensions, in which pro-Russia separatists have seized government buildings in eastern Ukraine and declared independence, while government forces have mounted limited offensives to retake control of the region.
But instead of a dialogue, the day was more a case of competing monologues, with the two sides as far apart as ever.
Among the first to speak was the acting prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who reiterated a promise to fight graft and urged unity, but made no particular outreach to the besieged eastern regions where separatist leaders on Sunday held ballot referendums that they said showed broad public support for seceding from Ukraine and perhaps joining Russia.
"To fight corruption and provide people with jobs is our main task," Yatsenyuk said. "And that will unite our country."
Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov said in his opening remarks at the Kiev talks that authorities were "ready for a dialogue," but insisted they would not talk to the pro-Russia gunmen, whom the government has denounced as "terrorists."
"Those armed people who are trying to wage a war on their own country, those who are with arms in their hands trying to dictate their will, or rather the will of another country -- we will use legal procedures against them and they will face justice," he said.
There were no representatives of the separatist factions at the talks.
Denis Pushilin, a leader of the insurgency in the city of Donetsk, said his faction was not invited to the meeting, and that the "talks with Kiev authorities could only be about one thing: the recognition of the Donetsk People's Republic."
Oleksandr Yefremov, a member of Ukraine's parliament and former governor of the Luhansk region, one of the separatist strongholds in the east, said in opening remarks that he expected more of a presence from his region, and he complained that the talks had opened with sharp words by a leader of the Orthodox Church, Patriarch Filaret, blaming Russia for the crisis.
"I am surprised that nobody is here from Luhansk, and I also don't understand why we start our dialogue with morality," Yefremov said. "We have people who think differently, who have different culture, and we have a responsibility to create a state that corresponds to the needs of our people."
Sergei Taruta, the governor of the eastern region of Donetsk, also attended the talks. But the overwhelming number of officials seemed strongly aligned with the central government in Kiev. They included the former prime minister and now presidential candidate, Yulia Tymoshenko, as well as the ambassadors to Ukraine from the United States and the European Union.
The Kiev government has been working to develop a "decentralization" plan that would empower local officials by giving them additional budget authority. It is an effort to answer demands in the east, supported by Russia, for a new "federalization" program that would substantially weaken the central government in favor of stronger regional governors.
The mayor of Donetsk, Alexander Lukyanchenko, urged officials at the talks to pay attention to the results of Sunday's referendum. While he acknowledged that the referendum may not be regarded as legitimate, he said it nonetheless demonstrated a genuine lack of faith in the Kiev government.
Sergey Tigipko, a former economics minister and candidate in the country's May 25 presidential election, urged that future talks be held in eastern Ukraine so officials could get a better understanding of demands in the region.
"Today, we don't understand what the east wants," Tigipko said. "In order to understand them, we need to talk about it there."
He urged officials in Kiev to develop a package that could be presented to residents of eastern Ukraine as the government's proposal for solving the crisis.
As the talks unfolded Wednesday in Kiev, the president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, said two other former Soviet republics, Georgia and Moldova, would sign agreements June 27 to tighten political and economic ties with the EU.
The refusal by Ukraine's former president, Viktor Yanukovych, to sign similar agreements last fall set off the protests in Kiev that cascaded into months of unrest and ultimately led to Yanukovych's ouster.
He fled to Russia in late February amid rising bloodshed, including demonstrators killed by snipers alleged to have been police.
The protests included a strong faction of Ukrainian nationalists. Predominantly Russian-speaking regions of eastern and southern Ukraine denounced the government in Kiev that took over as a junta bent on repressing them.
The Black Sea peninsula of Crimea voted to secede in March and was quickly annexed by Russia. Armed men seized police stations and other buildings in a large swath of eastern Ukraine.
Kiev and the West alleged Russia was fomenting the unrest, which Moscow denies. The U.S. and European Union have imposed sanctions on Russia in the crisis.
Ukraine's economy was in perilous shape even before the protests, and months of constant disorder have raised fears of severe suffering.
Rinat Akhmetov, regarded as Ukraine's richest industrialist and an influential figure in the Donetsk region, made a rare public statement Wednesday urging the region to remain part of Ukraine.
"The Donetsk People's Republic -- nobody in the world will recognize it," he said. "We will face huge sanctions and will not be able to sell or produce."
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's road map aims to de-escalate tensions ahead of Ukraine's presidential election later this month. It offers an amnesty for those involved in the unrest and urges talks on decentralization and the status of the Russian language.
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Yevhen Perebiynis lamented, however, that the plan does not specifically oblige Russia to do anything.
Russia has strongly backed the road map while the United States views its prospects for success with skepticism. Russian officials continued to lend support Wednesday to the idea of a negotiated compromise.
"I am deeply convinced that even though the crisis in Ukraine has gone very far and the escalation of the conflict continues, there are still reserves and resources to stop the crisis in order to decrease the escalation of the conflict," said Sergei Naryshkin, the speaker of the lower house of the parliament. "The road to that lies through a dialogue only, through a dialogue of all political powers inside Ukraine."
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland welcomed the talks, but said: "We would like to see as much effort as is going into dialogue and round tables going into de-escalating, getting separatists out of buildings, demilitarizing the east."
Nuland said there would be more sanctions from the U.S. "if Russia doesn't step back."
Information for this article was contributed by David M. Herszenhorn and Alexandra Odynov of The New York Times and by Yuras Karmanau, Nataliya Vasilyeva, Srdjan Ndelejkovic, Alexander Zemlianichenko, Kirsten Grieshaber, Vladimir Isachenkov and Angela Charlton of The Associated Press.
A Section on 05/15/2014