Opposition rejects Yanukovych offer, but willing to talk more (UPDATE)

In three hours of talks, Yanukovych on Jan. 25 agreed to dismiss Mykola Azarov as prime minister and appoint opposition leader Arseniy Yatseniuk instead, with fellow opposition leader Vitali Klitschko as deputy prime minister. Yanukovych also agreed to release detainees arrested during more than two months of anti-government demonstrations.

Yatseniuk: ‘They only talked to us because you are here’

“No deal,” Yatseniuk, who leads the Batkivshchyna Party of imprisoned ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, tweeted to Yanukovych. “We’re finishing what we started. The people decide our leaders, not you.”  

“Our country is placed by the government on the edge of a breakup,” Yatseniuk told EuroMaidan demonstrators afterwards. “Yanukovych only talked to us because you are here.”

“Our first demand that has been accepted by the Yanukovych government is freeing of all our brothers. Criminal cases have to be closed, and all people have to walk free. The shameful laws approved not by hands but by hooves of the shameful majority have to be canceled,” Yatseniuk said. “We’re not afraid of responsibility, we’re ready to lead the nation to the European Union.” He said Tymoshenko has to walk free and the nation has to return to the 2004 constitution that put more power in parliament’s hands. “Enough of one czar,” he said. We don’t believe any of their words, we only believe their actions and results.”

Tiahnybok: “We have felt a real change in mood’

Oleh Tiahnybok, the opposition leader who heads the Svoboda Party, also participated in the talks. He also said no deal.

“Why did the authorities start to concede? This is the third round of negotiations, and we have felt a real difference in the mood. This is because we here opened the second front, protests are not only happening here in Kyiv, but started off in regions where people are taking power into their hands.”

“To solve the political crisis we have to continue negotiations,” Tiahnybok said. “We felt important progress, they’re talking very differently. They’re currently not ready to cancel the laws, but we have to pressure them into it. This is our clear position: to cancel the law.” An early presidential election, ahed of the scheduled 2015 vote, and resignation of the government also remain on top of the list of opposition’s demands.

But the question is, do we believe him?” The crowd shouted no, and Tiahnybok said: “Me neither.” He said actions will have to start first for the opposition and the people to be able to believe the president. He urged people to come to Maidan Nezalezhnosti to put more pressure on the authorities.

Poroshenko: ‘We have to stand united’

Member of parliament and millionaire businessman Petro Poroshenko said that “we to stand united to achieve” the opposition’s goals “not allow anyone to break us up … They gave us a proposal they thought we would turn down. The condition that Vitali mentioned was that the opposition has to take responsibility and take Ukraine to Europe. We’re ready for it.”

A EuroMaidan leader also dismissed the talks. “No compromises with a gang!” Dmytro
Yarosh, head of the Right Sector, said.

Details of Yanukovych’s plan

 Other elements of the president’s proposed deal:

— releasing all
detainees arrested in the protests if the demonstrators leave the frontlines of
their violent standoff with police on Hrushshevskogo Street;

— public debates between Yanukovych and Klitschko, one of his likely opponents challenging
Yanukovych’s reelection next year;

— amnesty for protesters in exchange for returning control of government buildings seized by EuroMaidan supporters in 13 regions to the authorities; and

— willingness by Yanukovych to change the constitution to create a parliamentary republic instead of the current strong presidential system.

Others see progress

Ostap Semerak, senior aide to Yatseniuk, said that “the sides seem to be getting closer to an agreement.”

Pavlo Rozenko of Vitali Klitschko’s UDAR said: “The positive thing I saw is a promise of amnesty, approval of law of amnesty. The second plus is that the president said he was ready to accept a presidential and parliamentary republic. The other plus is government resignation. It sounds like fantasy. I think the president made a proposal that will not be accepted.”

Rozenko said that he still didn’t see a “cast-in-iron-type agreement,” but rather described the talks as “one of the stages of negotiation, something to think about. It’s getting warmer and closer to concrete solutions compared to last time. I am worried that these fragile compromises might be broken by government force. The government acts like criminals by grabbing activists, but I think this is just to get a better negotiating position. I think they will all walk free once a compromise is reached.”

Protests likely to continue

The rejection of the deal likely means that protesters will not leave Independence Square or the tense and violent standoff with police about a half-mile away at Hrushevskoho Street. Anti-government demonstrators also seized several oblast government centers this week.

Kyiv Post deputy chief editor Katya Gorchinskaya can be reached at [email protected] and staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at [email protected]