Ukraine leader offers opposition PM post to end crisis

Google – AFP, Stuart Williams and Dario Thuburn (AFP), 25 January 2014

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych (2nd left) meets opposition leaders

in Kiev, on January 25, 2014 (Pool/AFP, Mykhaylo Markiv)

Kiev — Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on Saturday offered the opposition the post of prime minister and to change the constitution, in a proposed compromise deal aiming to end the country's worst post-independence crisis.

Yanukovych offered top opposition leaders Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Vitali Klitschko the posts of prime minister and deputy prime minister in a brand new government, the presidency said.

Opposition leaders, who have called for Yanukovych's resignation, could not immediately be reached for a reaction and it was not clear if they would accept the deal.

Anti-government protesters cover

 themselves under makeshift shields

 during clashes with police in Kiev

 on January 25, 2014 (AFP, Genya

Savilov)

The Ukrainian presidency said in a statement after talks between Yanukovych and the opposition that the two sides had agreed the protests and the police presence in Kiev would be scaled down, raising hopes of a resolution of the crisis.

Yanukovych said he was willing to consider changes to the constitution that would reduce the presidency's huge powers, the presidency said.

Fatherland party leader Yatsenyuk is a former foreign minister and speaker of parliament. UDAR (Punch) party leader and world boxing champion Klitschko would be his deputy in charge of humanitarian affairs.

"If he (Yatsenyuk) agrees to take the post of prime minister then a decision will be taken for the government to resign," Justice Minister Olena Lukash said.

The president also promised to consider changes to draconian anti-protest laws passed by parliament January 16 which sparked the latest crisis.

"We are ready to make changes to these laws and work together with our political opponents on finding a political consensus for a compromise on these laws," the presidency statement said.

The president also agreed to a key demand of the opposition to agree to put a bill to parliament that would amnesty those arrested during the protests and political crisis.

But the condition is that the protest's epicentre -- Independence Square -- and the offices seized by protesters were given back to the authorities.

Akhmetov says dialogue 'only solution'

The protests first erupted in response to Yanukovych's refusal to sign a key deal with the European Union in November.

But they have snowballed into anti-government protests against Yanukovych's four-year rule, which the opposition claims has been riddled with corruption and nepotism.

Three people have been killed in the protests, according to officials, although the opposition puts the toll at six.

An anti-government protester paints a

 scene of fellow protesters clashing with

 riot police in central Kiev on January 25,

2014 (AFP, Vasily Maximov)

The Ukrainian interior minister earlier warned that efforts to solve the crisis without using force were proving "futile" as the opposition accused Yanukovych of planning to impose a state of emergency.

The European Union urged concrete steps to end the crisis, which has raised fears of a prolonged civil conflict.

The authorities have also faced mounting pressure outside Kiev with protesters storming regional administration offices not just in the anti-Yanukovych west of the country but also north and east of Kiev.

Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko has bluntly warned that the use of force was a possibility.

"The events of the last days in the Ukrainian capital have shown that our attempts to solve the conflict peacefully, without recourse to a confrontation of force, remain futile," he said.

Accusing the mainstream opposition of failing to control radicals, Zakharchenko said the authorities now had information that the protesters were "hoarding firearms" at their headquarters.

He later said that all protesters remaining on Independence Square and occupying official buildings in Kiev would be considered as "extremist groups" and the authorities would use force if need be.

In a sign of a possible split within the ruling Regions Party over how to deal with the crisis, Ukraine's richest man Rinat Akhmetov said that dialogue was the only way forward.

"There can be only one solution to the political crisis -- a peaceful one. Any use of force is unacceptable," said Akhmetov, an ally of Yanukovych and bankroller of his party.

"The only way out is to move from street confrontation to negotiations," he added in a statement released by his SCM holding company.

Ukrainian anti-government protesters

 throw Molotov cocktails during clashes

 with riot police in central Kiev early

 on January 25, 2014 (AFP, Dmitry

Serebryakov)

The crisis is Ukraine's worst since its independence in 1991 and has seen crowds of hundreds of thousands of protesters in Kiev.

World leaders have condemned the violence and urged the president to hold talks. But so far Western pressure has had little impact on the standoff.

EU Enlargement Commissioner, Stefan Fuele, who held talks with Yanukovych in Kiev Friday, urged the Ukrainian government to take concrete steps to halt "a spiral of violence and intimidation" and restore peace in the country.

"I have discussed a series of steps to this end, that could lead to confidence building and to a political process aimed at ending this crisis," he added.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is due in Kiev next week while the crisis is also expected to dominate an upcoming EU-Russia summit.

Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk has starkly warned of a "black scenario that is really possible: Ukraine falling apart."