However, a prominent opposition leader said on Friday that nothing short of Yanukovich's resignation would do.
Hours after the president's comments on Friday, huge fireballs lit up the night sky in central Kiev and black smoke rose from burning tyres at giant barricades erected by protesters.
Clashes resumed at the barricades, which are just yards from lines of riot police and also made up of bags of ice and scraps of furniture.
Angry demonstrators hurled firebombs, rocks and fireworks at officers.
Riot police responded with tear-gas and several dozen protesters were rushed to a makeshift medical triage area to be treated.
Hundreds of thousands first took to the streets of Kiev after Yanukovich backed away from signing a free-trade deal with the EU, which many people saw as the key to a European future, in favour of financial aid from Ukraine's old Soviet master Russia.
The movement has since widened into broader protests against perceived misrule and corruption in the Yanukovich leadership.
Al Jazeera's Nick Spicer, reporting from Kiev on Friday, described the situation in the city as tense.
According to local news reports, Yanukovich has promised a government reshuffle, an amnesty for dozens of detained activists and changes in the anti-protest legislation.
In a meeting with religious leaders, he said that a special parliament meeting next Tuesday would push through the changes.
The dismissal of the government of Prime Minister Mykola Azarov has been one of the main demands of the opposition in two months of unrest.
Ministry building occupied
Protesters braced themselves for more clashes with the police earlier on Friday as they erected more street barricades and occupied a government ministry building in Kiev.
Yanukovich's Party of the Regions confirmed reports that two months of anti-government protests were spreading to other parts of the country, particularly the west, where it said "extremists" had seized regional administration buildings.
Vitaly Klitschko, a prominent opposition leader, said the only way out of the impasse lay with international mediation.
"Any discussion of how to settle the crisis in Ukraine must take place with the involvement of the international mediators of the highest level," a statement from his Udar party quoted him as saying..........................http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/01/ukraine-leader-offer-fails-end-protests-2014124235045149406.html
25/1/14
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Protesters, police in standoff in Kiev after sporadic clashes...
ReplyDeleteProtesters and Ukrainian police were on Saturday still locked in a tense standoff in Kiev after a night of sporadic clashes that erupted despite a truce and offer of concessions by President Viktor Yanukovych.
The epicentre of the two month-long crisis - Ukraine's worst since 1991 - was relatively calm early Saturday but hundreds of protesters were still at the scene with the security forces on the other side of their lines.
The opposition and authorities also accused each other of provoking further unrest after a body of a policeman was found in southern Kiev and a court jailed over a dozen protesters for two months.
Overnight, demonstrators had hurled Molotov cocktails at police who responded with stun grenades and rubber bullets, AFP correspondents said.
The exchanges on Grushevsky Street in Kiev lacked the ferocious intensity of those earlier in the week but will raise concerns about the sustainability of the truce brokered by opposition leader and world champion Vitali Klitschko in place since early Thursday.
The clashes had killed five activists earlier in the week, according to protesters. The authorities have confirmed two shooting deaths but insisted police were not involved.
Protesters set fire to the barricade of tyres at their frontline and kept it going throughout the night while banging on a makeshift war drum of metal sheets as the noxious smoke made them almost invisible to the police.
Toward the morning however they allowed the fires to die down and used them mainly to warm themselves amid temperatures of minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit).
The interior ministry meanwhile said a body of a police officer was found in southern Kiev, though without linking it to the protesters or clashes which have mostly engulfed the city centre.
The ministry further accused the opposition camp's security of "attacking three police officers" near the Independence Square protest hub, injuring one of them with a knife and holding the other two captive...................http://www.france24.com/en/20140125-protesters-police-standoff-kiev-after-sporadic-clashes/
25/1/14
Kerry Vows Support for Ukrainian Protesters...
ReplyDeleteUS Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday reiterated the United States’ support for Ukraine's protesters.
Kerry said Washington is working with its allies and top officials in Kiev to halt the violence between security forces and government opponents.
“We will stand with the people of Ukraine,” Kerry said in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Kerry added that the United States is coordinating with its allies in efforts to resolve the situation peacefully.
“We are working with our partners to press the government of Ukraine to forego violence, to address the concerns of peaceful protesters, to foster dialogue, promote the freedom of assembly and expression,” he said, as cited by RIA Novosti.
Violence has continued in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, despite President Viktor Yanukovych’s promise to make “concessions.”...... http://www.novinite.com/articles/157561/Kerry+Vows+Support+for+Ukrainian+Protesters#sthash.PA2DECbA.dpuf
25/1/14
Serbian scenario unfolding in Ukraine?...
ReplyDeleteAs riots resumed in central Kiev, Ukrainian affairs analyst Nebojsa Malic told RT that protesters are using extortion tactics to get the government to undemocratically hand power over to them.
RT: President Yanukovich said he will reshuffle the government and make other concessions. Why have the protesters started hurling Molotov cocktails again, and not waited for these concessions to take place?
Nebojsa Malic: What has been going on in Ukraine since November reminds me of nothing more than a Serbian scenario, which started out in September and October of 2000 with the early presidential elections for then Yugoslavia. The goal of the protesters who were trained and financed by the US government was to overthrow the government of president Milosevic. And they succeeded because police and the military and the government were already so taken over by these subversive groups that they refused to put up any resistance. I don’t know if that is exactly what is happening in Kiev, but it is the same playbook. The protesters camp out in the square and demand completely unreasonable, undemocratic demands, such as the immediate resignation of the government and turning over the power to the so-called popular opposition that hasn’t even been tested in elections and has a very small minority of support of the parties that have. And all of a sudden they are the democrats and the government is anti-democratic because John McCain says so.
RT: We are seeing some extreme measures from the protesters. They are throwing Molotov cocktails, throwing stones in an attempt to show force. Why are they doing this now, without waiting for the concessions to take effect?
NM: [Protesters] are trying to force the issue. This is a typical extortion tactic. The whole point is to force the government to react, to force Berkut and other police forces to confront the protesters and then scream “bloody murder, oh my god, they are killing us, they are oppressing us, please help, foreign intervention” and so on. It is a very basic tactic from the rebellion playbook, as was articulated in Serbia 15 years ago and is being implemented throughout the world in Georgia and elsewhere and in Ukraine in 2004 of all things. The protesters are trying to make a point that they are the ones that decide what gets done and who initiates the violence.
RT: We have seen government buildings taken over in different parts of the country. How much further do you think these riots will spread, and what would it take to end them?
NM: This could turn into another Syrian scenario. Syria also started as allegedly spontaneous protests against the government and ended up being a full-scale civil war. There are definitely forces in the western part of Ukraine that have always been hostile to the majority of the population in the country, even allied with the Germans during WWII. And it is not an accident that these opposition movements have the most support in that part of the country. The Crimeans already said they will not stand idly by and look at their future being stolen by these Westerners.
Then eastern Ukraine, where all the economic and industrial activity is located, is staunchly pro-Russian and intolerant of this sort of thing. So this could get very ugly, very quickly if the opposition and their Western backers push this.
http://rt.com/op-edge/ukraine-serbian-scenario-protest-177/
25/1/14