Yanukovych, opposition hold talks
Print Edition
Ukraine’s opposition yesterday sat down for talks with President Viktor Yanukovych for the first time since mass protests broke out over his failure to sign a pact with the European Union three weeks ago.
World boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, nationalist leader Oleg Tyagnybok and the head of the party of jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, were all in attendance.
Yanukovych promised an amnesty for those arrested during the protests and said he would consider sacking officials responsible for working on the Association Agreement. The opposition, however, said it was not enough, insisting that the government of Prime Minister Mykola Azarov should resign.
“This government is guilty of a political and economic crisis,” Yatsenyuk said in Azarov’s presence, also saying the president should punish riot police for beating protesters.
The opposition is planning a new mass protest tomorrow.
The talks came after Ukraine’s richest man and hugely influential powerbroker Rinat Akhmetov called on all parties to find a peaceful solution to Ukraine’s deepest political crisis in a decade.
The “round table” talks are chaired by Ukraine’s first President Leonid Kravchuk.
“I am ready to find a path that would give hope to the Ukrainian people that we are capable of overcoming such crises,” Yanukovych said.
On the sometimes violent protests that have rocked Kiev in the last days, he said: “The investigation should say who is guilty. Those responsible should be punished, those caught up by chance amnestied.”
Akhmetov, who according to Forbes magazine is the country’s richest man with a US$14.9 billion fortune, said it was important now to have a “balanced approach” and for all sides to sit down for negotiations.
“Politicians, government officials, the opposition, and moral leaders of the country must sit down at the negotiating table and make a decision we will be proud of,” he said yesterday.
Experts say time is running out for Yanukovych to make a decision on a future direction for his politically volatile nation, which is split between a Ukrainian-speaking, pro-EU west and a Russian-speaking, Moscow-leaning east.
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