Ukraine PM takes hard line on protests
Print Edition
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Mykola Azarov denounced anti-government protesters as “terrorists” yesterday, as President Viktor Yanukovich held talks with opposition leaders to end weeks of unrest.
The prime minister, speaking to his cabinet, took a tough line on the protesters, who massed anew yesterday in their hundreds, inflamed by reports of at least three demonstrators dying overnight.
Azarov said: “Terrorists from the ‘Maidan’ (Independence Square) seized dozens of people and beat them. I am officially stating that these are criminals who must answer for their action.”
He accused opposition leaders of inciting “criminal action” by calling for anti-government protests, which he said destabilized the situation in Ukraine, a large former Soviet republic of 46 million people.
In continued overnight violence into yesterday, two people died from gunshot wounds, according to a statement by the general prosecutor, and a third was said to have been killed in a fall from atop the Dynamo football stadium.
Fifty people were detained overnight and 29 of them were officially charged with taking part in mass unrest, police said. A total of 167 police have been injured. There was no immediate figure for civilians injured.
Azarov said that police deployed on the streets did not possess firearms and the interior ministry has denied that police have used guns during the crisis.
Yanukovich, who has so far refused to make any concessions to the protesters, raised cautious expectations of a negotiated settlement, saying he wanted no bloodshed and agreeing to meet opposition leaders.
In a statement urging people not to heed the calls of political radicals, he said: “I am against bloodshed, against the use of force, against inciting enmity and violence.”
His website said talks had begun between the president, his aides and three opposition leaders — boxer-turned-politician Vitaly Klitschko, former economy minister Arseny Yatsenyuk and far-right nationalist Oleh Tyahnibok.
Yanukovich, whose decision to ditch a trade deal with the European Union and turn to Russia for financial aid sparked the mass unrest last November, has rebuffed opposition demands for the dismissal of the Azarov government and the prosecution of the interior minister for “heavy-handed” police tactics.
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