Ukraine reshuffle promised
Print Edition
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, in what appeared to be an offer of major concessions to the opposition amid mass protests against his rule, pledged yesterday to reshuffle the government next week and to amend sweeping anti-protest laws.
In comments to church leaders, reported by Interfax news agency, Yanukovich said key decisions would be made at a special session of parliament scheduled to take place next Tuesday.
“We will take a decision at this session. The president will sign a decree and we will reshuffle the government in order to find the best possible professional government team,” he said.
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.
Referring for the first time to the need to work closely with the opposition, he said opposition leaders would be brought into an anti-crisis team which he would lead. “I will do all I can to stop this conflict, to stop violence,” he said.
But he added that if this was not possible “all legal methods” would be used to tackle the situation.
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 “extremists” had seized regional administration buildings. “The situation has grown sharper throughout the country,” the party said in a statement in which it called on people to disregard the calls of “radical troublemakers” to turn out for protest rallies.
About 1,000 demonstrators moved away from Kiev’s Independence Square in the early hours yesterday and began to erect new barricades closer to presidential headquarters. Masked protesters, some carrying riot police shields seized as trophies, stood guard as others piled up sandbags packed with frozen snow to form new ramparts across the road leading down into the square.
A group of protesters took control of the main agricultural ministry building in the center. “We need the place for our people to warm up,” a local protest leader was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.
Opposition leader Vitaly Klitschko, after leaving a second round of talks with Yanukovich empty handed, late on Thursday voiced fears the impasse could now lead to further bloodshed.
At least three protesters have been killed so far — two from gunshot wounds — after clashes between protesters led by a hard core of radicals and riot police.
Protestors appeared to have heeded a call from the opposition to maintain a truce.
Away from Kiev, thousands stormed regional administration headquarters in Rivne in western Ukraine on Thursday, breaking down doors and demanding the release of people detained in the unrest there, UNIAN news agency reported.
In the town of Cherkasy, 200km south of Kiev, about 1,000 protesters took over the first two floors of the main administration building and lit fires outside the building. Similar action took place in Lviv, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk and Khmelnytsky in western and central Ukraine.
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