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UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT, PREMIER FAIL TO AGREE ON DATE OF EARLY POLLS. President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych on May 16 failed to agree on a date for early parliamentary elections, Ukrainian media reported. The working group they created a week earlier to deal with the current crisis failed to supply them with the unanimously approved package of bills needed for preterm elections. National Security and Defense Council head Ivan Plyushch, who attended the Yushchenko-Yanukovych meeting together with First Deputy Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, told journalists that the president and prime minister proposed that the working group continue to seek agreement on a more coordinated package of bills. The anticrisis working group was reportedly joined by Leonid Kravchuk, Ukraine's first president. Later the same day, some 20,000 supporters of Yanukovych and the Verkhovna Rada rallied on Independence Square in Kyiv. Yanukovych, who was expected to address the rally, did not show up. Yushchenko and Yanukovych are expected to meet on May 17 to discuss their further course of action. "Kommersant-Ukraina" wrote on May 17 that if the meeting fails to produce satisfying results, Yushchenko may decide on "extreme measures" during a session of the National Security and Defense Council on May 18. JM