Ukraine opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, backed by thousands of supporters, emerged from a meeting with international mediators demanding a new election to settle a crisis over a poll he says was fraudulent.
A defiant Yushchenko told his supporters in Kiev's Independence Square to remain where they were to drive home his demands to overturn the result of last Sunday's run-off vote handing victory to Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich.
"The prime minister cannot hear you. He is offering things which drive Ukraine further from a solution to this political crisis," Yushchenko said after talks with Yanukovich, outgoing President Leonid Kuchma and European and Russian mediators.
"We will only hold talks on staging a new vote," he said, adding that he sought an election on December 12.
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana told CNN the idea of another election would be discussed at a meeting of a working group on Saturday.
"Without doubt a third election is a possibility," Solana said.
The meeting followed a fifth successive day of mass street protests in Kiev by supporters of Yushchenko, who says Yanukovich's victory was rigged.
The dispute has raised tension between the West and Russia, which fears losing its hold over ex-Soviet Ukraine.
It has also exposed a centuries-old faultline dividing the country which some fear could even become the front line of a civil war. The West-leaning Yushchenko said the political crisis had to be resolved within days, adding he had rejected a proposal by Yanukovich to submit irregularities to the courts.
"We must not delay talks for three, four days. If there is no decision within one or two days, it means Yanukovich cannot hear you."
Kuchma said both sides had agreed to set the working group in motion immediately to resolve the political crisis and to renounce violence. "We will without any doubt find a worthy way out of this complicated situation.
We understand that we have but one Ukraine and if we fail to find a solution, the consequences will be most unfavourable," Kuchma said after a 2-1/2 hour meeting in the Mariinsky presidential palace.