More Muscle-Flexing as Talks Drag On.

President Yushchenko has called his regional governors in for a meeting at 3 pm which will be joined by law-enforcement chiefs at 5 pm. Meanwhile some 2,000 Regions supporters bused in overnight from eastern Ukraine are marching around Kiev and some of the marchers say they will wind up with a rally outside the president’s building. Earlier today Yushchenko’s press service announced that he had met with the interior minister and head of the SBU national security police to ensure there was adequate “control over the social-political situation” and “supports for law and order and avoidance of attempts to violate the constitutional order” – an obvious reference to recent statements by parliamentary coalition leaders that they could try to sit a government without the president’s approval. However, leading MPs from the Regions and Our Ukraine factions said they were close to a deal that would bring Our Ukraine into the parliament’s majority coalition. The MPs said the deal could be signed at a “round table” meeting of top political leaders which was initially planned for this afternoon but has been postponed until tomorrow, or whenever a deal is reached. The two sides said they still disagreed on some points including whether the Communists would have to first leave the coalition. Tom Warner: It’s hard to tell which way the president is leaning but we still think that he will probably drag out the talks into next month and for now neither approve Viktor Yanukovich’s nomination as prime minister nor dissolve parliament.