Moscow, 9 April: The Russian People's Democratic Union (RPDU), headed by former Russian prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, is sceptical about the results of opposition conferences held in Moscow and St Petersburg (on 5 and 6 April).

"The issue of (the opposition's) view of the authorities rests on establishing concise, clear and verifiable criteria, which would allow one to impartially judge whether or not the authorities were ready to step back onto the path of legitimacy," an RPDU statement released on Wednesday (9 April) says.

According to the movement, "these criteria have to include: willingness on the part of the authorities to hold new parliamentary elections under new rules; providing citizens with genuine rights to hold assemblies and rallies; allowing an alternative point of view to appear on television; reconsideration of political prisoners' cases (including the Yukos case)."

"This was not done at the conferences," the statement says.

"Second, we believe that the main issue for the opposition was and remains the issue of citizens' trust, whose interests the opposition has to defend. That is why we believe that it does not make any sense to take any new steps towards unification without assessing our mistakes. First of all, we have to understand why there was no consolidation of opposition forces at the State Duma election and during the presidential election campaign. Unfortunately, mistakes have not yet begun to be corrected," the statement says.

"Third, we do not see any sense in the idea of the National Assembly in its current format (Other Russia plus others). We suggest that a forum with representation as broad as possible be set up instead of the National Assembly, based on the principal of the equality of all participants. Such a forum could be a good platform for discussion across a whole range of socially important problems," the statement by Kasyanov's movement says.

The organizers of the opposition conferences, which a RPDU representative attended as observer, are considering the National Assembly as an alternative parliament and are planning to hold it on 17-18 May.