Power-sharing offer falls on deaf ears in Ukraine

Protesters attack the Ukrainian House government building in central Kiev early today.
Protesters attack the Ukrainian House government building in central Kiev early today.

KIEV, Ukraine - An offer from Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to include opposition politicians in the government failed to defuse the country’s political crisis as leaders of a spreading protest movement refused to compromise.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Vitali Klitschko and Oleh Tyahnybok on Saturday urged demonstrators to keep pushing for Yanukovych’s resignation and snap elections after the president offered to hand over top Cabinet jobs. Activists earlier took over government buildings in the capital, Kiev, and seized the administrative headquarters of 10 of the country’s 25 regions.

The country of 45 million, a key route for Russian energy toward Europe, is going through its worst political crisis in at least a decade. Yanukovych, struggling to tame demonstrations that turned deadly last week as anti-protest laws triggered riots, on Saturday offered his biggest concessions yet. Clashes between protesters and the police resumed before midnight.

“We will not backtrack,” Klitschko said. “We are keeping our positions. There are no extremists here. We are peaceful people, who are fighting for their rights and demands. We are not listening to any provocations.”

Yanukovych said he was ready to sack his loyalists and give the premiership to Yatsenyuk and a deputy prime minister position to Klitschko.

The leadership changes were offered in a portion of the statement attributed to the minister of justice, Olena Lukash, who took part in the talks. Lukash said that Yanukovych also had agreed to engage in a public debate with Klitschko, who has said he plans to challenge Yanukovych in the presidential election next year.

The deal also would allow for the release of detained protesters who have not been charged with serious crimes, and calls for reshaping the Central Election Commission to give opposition parties more influence - a step that is seen as important to preventing election fraud, which has been a persistent problem in Ukrainian balloting.

While Yatsenyuk said the opposition is ready to form a government to free jailed ex-premier Yulia Tymoshenko and guide the country toward better ties with western Europe, he fell short of endorsing Yanukovych’s offer. The opposition urged people to attend a demonstration today.

He told the crowd at the main protest site that Yanukovych must still meet several key demands of the opposition and that talks will continue.

“I don’t think there can be any offers before Yanukovych is ready to resign,” Irina, 47, a teacher from Kiev, said at the demonstration. “I can’t imagine anything else. I can’t imagine any kind of bargaining.” Irina offered only one name.

A special parliament session called for Tuesday will be crucial in deciding the fate of the country, Yatsenyuk said. Klitschko and Tyahnybok urged activists to continue protests until all their demands are met.

Yanukovych has said that session could discuss a government reshuffle and changes to the new anti-protest laws.

“Yanukovych offered us some concessions today as the second front opened in the regions,” Tyahnybok said. “I urge everyone to come to Maidan, to take to the streets in the regions. Our fight will continue until our demands are met.”

The government also offered an amnesty for protesters who agree to release administration buildings they have seized, Andriy Portnov, Yanukovych’s deputy chief of staff, said in a separate statement on the president’s website.

The two sides will start talks on changing the constitution and on repealing anti-protest laws that ignited violence last week, according to Portnov. The clashes left as many as six people dead and more than 1,000 injured.

“The reshuffle offered by Yanukovych isn’t on protesters’ agenda now,” Vadym Omelchenko, the head of the Gorshenin Institute in Kiev, said Saturday by phone.

After both sides called Saturday for foreign mediation to help find a resolution to the crisis, opposition leaders met again with Yanukovych, claiming the president plans to initiate a state of emergency. Officials including Prime Minister Mykola Azarov have denied such plans in recent days.

Yanukovych’s willingness to remove Azarov, who has been his staunch ally through the more than two-month-long civic uprising, underscored just how much pressure he is facing to contain the crisis. As mass protests have spread in recent days, it has become increasingly clear that the elite Berkut riot police and other Interior Ministry troops are outnumbered and would face enormous challenges if asked to enforce a state of emergency.

Riots flared up again Friday night in Ukraine’s capital, prompting the interior minister to say that peaceful efforts to end the unrest were useless.

After a day of calm, clashes resumed shortly after 10 p.m. near the parliament, where demonstrators were throwing firebombs into the Ukrainian House building and setting off fireworks, and police responded with tear gas. Although the crowd created a corridor at the building’s entrance apparently for police to leave, none was seen exiting.

The assault started after an estimated 200 police were seen entering the building and speculation spread that they were preparing to disperse demonstrators.

Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko said the opposition had lost control over radical activists and warned peaceful protesters to vacate central Kiev or be deemed extremists.

“Tuesday is judgment day,” Yatsenyuk told protesters, referring to the parliament session. “We do not believe a single word of theirs. We believe only actions and results.”

At a later news conference, Yatsenyuk said, “We are not throwing out the proposal, but we are not accepting it, either. We are conducting serious consultations among three opposition forces.”

Activists in Kiev seized the Agriculture Ministry and took over five floors and the basement of the Energy Ministry, adding to the area of central Kiev they already controlled, the Unian news service reported.

Protesters also were occupying buildings of governors picked by Yanukovych across large areas of western Ukraine, refusing to take orders from the central government.

Administrative headquarters were seized in Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Ternopil, Poltava, Chernihiv, Vinnytsia, Chernivtsi, Khmelniytskyi, Rivne and Lutsk. Activists are picketing the buildings in Uzhorod, Kherson, Chrekasy, Zhytomyr, Kirovograd and Sumy.

The protests broke out after Yanukovych scrapped a key treaty with the European Union in order to secure a bailout loan from Russia. President Vladimir Putin had pressed hard to keep Ukraine in his nation’s political and economic orbit, but more Ukrainians favor closer ties with the 28-nation EU than a new alliance with Russia.

Yanukovych made personnel changes before his power-share offer. He named Andriy Klyuyev as head of his administration, promoting the Security Council chief protesters have called on to resign after demonstrators were injured in 2013 clashes with police. The president also appointed Portnov.

While Yanukovych earlier promised a Cabinet shuffle and changes to the anti-rally bill at an emergency parliament session called for Tuesday, opposition leader Klitschko said protesters won’t be satisfied until the president resigns.

The protests that have gripped Kiev since last year escalated last week with the first deaths. Police are investigating the discovery on Wednesday of two bodies with gunshot wounds. Live ammunition caused the deaths, the Interior Ministry said Thursday, denying its officers fired the bullets.

The opposition says six people have died, including one who fell off a colonnade after being beaten and another who was identified by his relatives after police found a body outside Kiev with signs of torture. About 1,000 people have been injured, while an instigator of car protests that targeted officials’ homes is missing, activists say.

About 250 police officers have sought medical help, the Interior Ministry said. An officer was found shortly before midnight Friday in Kiev with a gunshot wound in the head, the ministry said on its website. Protesters denied involvement.

EU officials, who’ve said they may reassess their relations with Ukraine after the violence, are seeking to broker a peace deal in Kiev. Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule met Friday with Yanukovych and opposition leaders, while Catherine Ashton, the bloc’s foreign-policy chief, is due this week.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he discussed Ukraine with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Montreux, Switzerland, calling on his American counterpart not to interfere, according to the transcript of a TV interview on the ministry website.

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, who heads the Foreign Relations Committee, said Saturday that Yanukovych must end the violence and “constructively” engage the political opposition.

“The deteriorating situation in Ukraine is growing more worrisome by the day, he said in a statement on the website of the U.S. Embassy in Kiev. “The world is watching and a peaceful resolution remains the only allowable outcome.”

And on Saturday, Yanukovych came under further pressure from two of the nation’s wealthiest men, the so called oligarchs who control Ukraine’s industry and economy and also wield influence in the parliament. Both men warned, in separate statements, that Ukraine was in danger of splintering.

System Capital Management, a conglomerate owned by Ukraine’s richest man, Rinat Akhmetov, regarded as a close ally of Yanukovych, issued a statement lamenting the loss of life and offering condolences.

“Business cannot keep silent when people are killed; a real danger of breakup of the country emerges; when a political crisis can lead to a deep economic recession and thus inevitably result in lower standards of living,” the statement said. “It is only by peaceful action that the political crisis can be resolved. Any use of force and weapons is unacceptable.”

Another billionaire, Petro Poroshenko, a member of the parliament who is viewed as a potential future president, issued a statement calling on lawmakers loyal to Yanukovych to join with opposition leaders to reach a compromise.

“Ukraine has never faced such a big threat,” Poroshenko said. “It’s no longer a political crisis. It’s a crisis of statehood. In danger are the lives of our fellow citizens, civil peace and territorial integrity.” Information for this article was contributed by Ott Ummelas and Daryna Krasnolutska of Bloomberg News; by Jim Heintz, Maria Danilova, Yuras Karmanau, Laura Mills of The Associated Press; and by David M. Herszenhorn and Oksana Lyachynska of The New York Times.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/26/2014

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