You're reading: Kuchma doesn’t want to meet with Melnychenko, but will do so if prosecutor insists

Second Ukrainian President (1994-2005) Leonid Kuchma has said he does not want a face-to-face meeting with former officer of the State Guard Department Mykola Melnychenko, but will agree to it if the Prosecutor General's Office insists.

"Today I have refused to have a face-to-face meeting with Melnychenko," he told reporters in Kyiv before his visit to the main investigative department of the Prosecutor General’s Office.

Kuchma called Melnychenko "a betrayer of the country."

"I don’t understand how one can be in the same room with this being… He has thrown so much mud at me over 10 years. He has betrayed national interests for 10 years," Kuchma said.

He said Melnychenko was involved in "forgery and falsification", including in the case on the murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze.

At the same time, Kuchma said that if today investigators at the prosecutor’s office insist on a face-to-face meeting with Melnychenko, then he would agree to it.