Ashton to Ukraine as Police Move in on Protesters

Local Editor

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton will hold emergency talks in Ukraine Tuesday, amid growing international concern at the political crisis which has pitted the security forces against pro-EU demonstrators.

Ukrainian security forces on Monday moved in on the demonstrators to end a week-long blockade of the government headquarters, prompting Washington to urge Kiev to "immediately de-escalate the situation".

With the authorities apparently keen to regain control of the city center, the party of jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko said that armed police had raided their offices although this was denied by police.
Upping the stakes after more than two weeks of protests over the government's rejection of a pact with the European Union, the protesters a day earlier symbolically toppled the statue of the Soviet Union's founder Vladimir Lenin in Kiev.

President Viktor Yanukovych announced he would meet former Ukrainian presidents on Tuesday in a bid to find a way out of the crisis and was also backing the idea of roundtable talks with the opposition.
With international concern growing about the risk of tensions degenerating into violence, the EU's Ashton was to travel to Kiev Tuesday for talks with Yanukovych.
Ashton voiced concern in a statement Tuesday that any attempts to end the stand-off between Ukraine security forces and pro-EU demonstrators could be derailed by the raid on opposition party offices.
"These latest events seriously risk to derail the process," she warned, calling on the Ukrainian authorities "to exercise utmost restraint and refrain from any further use of force, in order to give space for a negotiated solution out of the current political stalemate."

And US Vice President Joe Biden on Monday conveyed Washington's "deep concern" to Yanukovych, a White House statement said.
Biden had called Yanukovych and emphasized the "need to immediately de-escalate the situation and begin dialogue with opposition leaders", it said.
Assistant Secretary for Europe Victoria Nuland meanwhile met with Russian leaders in Moscow to voice US concern about the situation in Ukraine.

Nuland "made clear to Russian counterparts that the US supports Ukraine's European choice, a non-violent and just political resolution to the current standoff, and a return to economic health with the support of the International Monetary Fund," the State Department said in a statement.
Ukrainian police on Monday forced protesters who have blockaded the government headquarters in central Kiev for a week to move away from the building.
A column of special troops moved in on the protesters to force them to leave, upon which opposition MPs urged the demonstrators to move down the street to Independence Square, the main protest venue.

Communal service workers -helped by police -then started dismantling the barricades the protesters had erected around the cabinet headquarters.

The website of the Zerkalo Nedeli weekly said that Yanukovych on Monday had held a special meeting of his top security officials and ministers at his out-of-town residence where it was decided to restore order in central Kiev.
"We are now going to defend our Maidan," said opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk, referring to Kiev's Independence Square by its Ukrainian name.
The leader of the UDAR (Punch) opposition party and former world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko urged people to head en masse to Independence Square.
"It is impossible now to make a step backwards," said protester Volodymyr Kiblyk from the central town of Znamenka who has been at the Kiev protests for two weeks.

A presidential statement said Yanukovych backed an initiative for talks proposed by Ukraine's first ex-Soviet president Leonid Kravchuk. He will also meet with Kravchuk and former leaders Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yushchenko on Tuesday, it said.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team