By Li Hongmei

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said a trade accord between the European Union and Ukraine won't be signed at a summit that started late yesterday, after a senior Ukrainian official predicted a "positive result."

The government of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych last week halted plans to sign an association agreement and free-trade treaty at the two-day meeting in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. The 28-member EU has said the offer remains on the table. First Deputy Prime Minister Serhiy Arbuzov said Ukraine is "ready to find a solution."

"Unfortunately not all expectations have been fulfilled," Merkel told reporters as she entered the meeting. "We will make very clear here that the EU is ready to accept Ukraine as an associate member, to sign the association treaty. Then we will see. We have no hope that it will happen this time, but the door is open."

Ukraine's snub of the trade deal halted a process that would have cemented the nation of 45 million in the EU's orbit. That sparked the biggest street protests since the Orange Revolution nine years ago, in which an opposition group including Yulia Tymoshenko overturned a presidential election initially won by Yanukovych.

Tymoshenko, who's serving a seven-year prison sentence for abuse of office, has urged EU leaders to drop her release as a pre-requisite for the agreement.

Merkel and most of the leaders from the EU's 28 states sat down with Yanukovych at close to 9 p.m. yesterday in Vilnius. The Ukrainian leader said he was in a "fine" mood as he entered the talks. The summit continues today.