Ukraine's Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich has urged a crowd of supporters to help him end demonstrations aimed at overturning his victory in a presidential election, saying they amounted to an "unconstitutional coup".
"Dear friends, together we must do everything so that an unconstitutional coup in Ukraine does not happen," he told many thousands of supporters brought to Kiev by train from his native Donbass coal mining region in eastern Ukraine.
"I believe in our strength, I believe in the law, I believe in the constitution," Yanukovich told the crowd on Friday, mostly men in their 30s and 40s, outside the main railway station.
Yanukovich was speaking as mediators from the European Union, Poland and Russia sought a solution to five days of tumult over the election, which opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko says he won because of widespread fraud.
The prime minister, adopting a mocking tone, told Yushchenko to turn up for round-table talks scheduled for later in the day.
"Today I am challenging that pesky cat Yushchenko to come to the talks, just as I challenged him to a debate," he said, referring to a popular Soviet-era children's cartoon.
President Leonid Kuchma earlier called for an end to the "so-called revolution" of days of protests by Yushchenko's supports and urged both sides to settle their differences to enable the country to move forward.