White House front man Jay Carney noted that President Viktor Yanukovych was "not actively leading the country at present" and that Washington could not confirm where he was.
Carney said that the White House had seen that the Ukrainian parliament had "lawfully elected its new speaker" and supported efforts to get the political situation under control and "ensuring that the institutions of government are working."
Asked whether the United States therefore saw Turchynov as the legitimate leader of Ukraine, Carney simply repeated the phrase that Washington had seen he had been elected leader of parliament.
President Barack Obama
I've now been in 57 states -- I think one left to go...
's front man said the United States was preoccupied with promoting a non violent process in Ukraine that resulted in a multiparty technocratic government that could help move towards early elections.
He also stressed that the United States believed that Russian President Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead..., with whom Obama spoke on the crisis on Friday, had an interest in ensuring a peaceful transition of power in Kiev.