DHAKA: Ukraine’s acting president said Kiev was ready for talks with Russia on Moscow’s takeover of Crimea, but it would never accept annexation of the peninsula.

‘We are ready for talks, but will never be reconciled with the annexation of our territory,’ Oleksander Turchinov said in a televised address to the nation, reports The Jerusalem Post.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry earlier rejected a Russian proposal to create a contact group to mediate in the crisis and suggest changes to Ukraine’s constitution.

In his address, Turchinov also said that any actions inciting mass disorder in Ukraine would be viewed as ‘abetting the military aggressor and a crime against the state’.

BDST: 1352 HRS, MAR 18, 2014