Ukraine Police Tear-Gas Pro-Europe Demonstrators
Ukrainian police fired tear gas Monday at pro-Europe demonstrators staging a second day of protests over the government's decision to scrap a key pact with the EU, which says the offer is "still on the table."
The issue of a pact with the European Union drew tens of thousands people on Sunday to central Kiev chanting 'revolution' and waving flags, in the biggest rally since the pro-West 2004 Orange Revolution overturned a rigged presidential poll and forced a new ballot.
Despite the rain on Monday up to 1,000 protesters returned to the capital to demand that President Viktor Yanukovych sign the EU agreement at a summit in Vilnius, and also to call for the government's resignation.
Some attempted to enter the government building but were forced back by riot police with tear gas, AFP correspondents at the scene reported.
The authorities claimed the tear gas was used by opposition activists, not police.
Protest leaders said Monday's attempted storming of the government building -- for the second time in two days -- was a "provocation" caused by unknown troublemakers.
With opposition calls for a bigger protest later on Monday, around 2,500 people had gathered in central Kiev by early evening.
The protests erupted after the government last week halted work on signing the Association Agreement, seen as a first step toward EU membership that would have marked a historic break from the Kremlin by the ex-Soviet state.
The decision came after the parliament failed to adopt legislation that would have freed jailed opposition leader and former premier Yulia Tymoshenko, a key EU condition for the signing of the cooperation accord.
The European bloc on Monday said its offer of an agreement this week still stood and reiterated its criticism of Russian pressure on Ukraine over the accord.
"It is up to Ukraine to freely decide what kind of engagement (it seeks) with the EU," the bloc's President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso said in a statement.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara told reporters Yanukovych still planned to travel to Vilnius, stressing his country was postponing -- not cancelling -- integration talks.
Opposition leaders planned to visit Tymoshenko in her hospital in the northeastern city of Kharkiv but were told the patients have been placed in quarantine.
"Indeed, all of them should be placed in quarantine," opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk acidly said on Twitter, referring to the authorities. "(They) suffer from political moronity."
Russia wants Ukraine to join its Customs Union which also includes Belarus and Kazakshtan and threatened retaliation if Kiev signed the EU deal.
Linguistic and historic fault lines divide Ukraine into the Kremlin-friendly Russian-speaking east and the nationalistic Ukrainian-speaking west, and Yanukovych's decision to put the EU negotiations on ice is expected to once again polarize the nation.
According to a November opinion poll by Gfk Ukraine, 45 percent of respondents said the country should sign the EU deal, while 14 percent supported the Customs Union membership.
Police put attendance at Sunday's main rally at around 50,000 people. The opposition said more than 100,000 had turned out.
The jailed Tymoshenko urged Ukrainians to protest until the government signs the agreement.
After losing to Yanukovych in a 2010 poll, the former prime minister was sentenced to seven years in jail on abuse of power charges seen by the West as politically motivated.
The government explained its decision to drop the EU agreement as the result of economic hardship.
In an interview with Russian television, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said the EU had denied Ukraine proper financial support for integration, promising just one billion euros over seven years.
But many observers say Yanukovych's about face was motivated by fears for his personal future and that he has no interest in freeing Tymoshenko ahead of 2015 presidential elections.
The government's sudden turn away from the EU deal came after Yanukovych this month traveled to Moscow for secret talks with Putin.
"For Yanukovych and all of his eastern neighbors there's nothing more important that staying in power," Russian daily Vedomosti said Monday.
"Yanukovych does not care what and which union Ukraine will be part of if he is not at the helm of it."
Source: Agence France Presse
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