Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Thursday he would call on Russian President Vladimir Putin to take action for pro-Russian separatists to be withdrawn from Ukraine when the two men meet next week, his website said.
Poroshenko is scheduled to see Putin in the Belarussian capital Minsk on August 26 at a meeting that will also include top leaders of the European Union and of the Russian-led Customs Union.
Though he did not mention Putin by name, Poroshenko was quoted by his website as saying that the Ukrainian side "would call for the (rebel) fighters to be withdrawn from Ukraine."
Earlier, Poroshenko said he might announce the dissolution of parliament as early as Sunday - a move that will set up a parliamentary election in Ukraine in late October.
"The decision will be made when there is a constitutional basis for it and that moment, as everyone knows, is on Independence Day (Aug. 24)," Poroshenko was quoted as saying by Interfax Ukraine news agency.
The governing coalition in Ukraine, which ousted its Moscow-backed president in street protests in February precipitating major separatist rebellions in its eastern regions in which more 2,000 people have been killed, collapsed on July 24.
Under the constitution, at least a month has to pass before parliament can be dissolved.
Poroshenko, a wealthy confectionery magnate, and his pro-Europe leadership hope to have stabilized the situation enough by October to be able to hold an election under normal conditions which will earn his new administration increased legitimacy.
He and his liberal supporters will be seeking an endorsement for the tough line they have taken in the separatist war and the confrontation with Russia, which annexed Crimea in March after ex-president Viktor Yanukovich fled.
Poroshenko's government, headed by the liberal Arseny Yatesniuk, hope an election will clear out many of the "old guard" who supported Yanukovich and produce a parliamentary coalition that will be able to push through vital economic and political reform after years of chaotic misrule and malpractice.
"In my discussions with party factions and parliamentary leaders, I will be guided by the desire of the Ukrainian people. They want a 'reboot', they want a purging (of the system). The elections will be the best form for a purging," he said.
Eighty percent of the people wanted an election, he said, and he was ready to satisfy them. "We will fulfil what the people want," he said.
The crisis in Ukraine, in which the United Nations says more than 2,000 people have been killed, has resulted in the worst crisis between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War.
The United States and its European allies have supported Kiev in accusing Moscow of orchestrating the separatist rebellions and arming the rebels and have imposed broad sanctions on Russia.
Moscow denies being behind the rebellions.
RUSSIAN AID TRUCKS
Ukrainian border guards began on Thursday to inspect a Russian truck convoy carrying aid earmarked for humanitarian relief in eastern Ukraine that has been stranded at the frontier between the two former Soviet republics for nearly a week.
Kiev believes the convoy of some 260 trucks, carrying water, food and medicines, could prove a Trojan horse for Russia to get weapons to pro-Russian separatists battling Ukrainian forces in the region - a notion that Moscow has dismissed as absurd.
"I can confirm that at 2:15 p.m. (1115 GMT) the Ukrainian side began border-customs formalities relating to the Russian humanitarian cargo," border guard spokesman Andriy Demchenko told Reuters.
Asked on whose territory the cargo was, he replied: "On the territory of the Russian border point."
It was not clear when the trucks would finally be authorised to enter Ukrainian territory, which at that border point is under rebel control. The rebels granted Kiev's border guards permission to access the crossing to check the trucks.
A Reuters witness saw 16 trucks move into territory beyond the Russian checkpoint, later followed by a second mini-convoy of 16 vehicles.
The aid is intended to alleviate a humanitarian crisis in the city of Luhansk, one of two big cities in Ukraine's Russian-speaking east which is being held by the rebels. The other is Donetsk, the region's main industrial hub.
REUTERS