Prague Post
December 3, 2013
NATO condemns crackdown in Ukraine
Daniel Bardsley
NATO foreign ministers have condemned “the use of excessive force against peaceful demonstrators in Ukraine,” their comments coming after police broke up protests in central Kiev over the weekend. Police are said to have used truncheons, stun grenades and tear gas to break up protests in central Kiev on Saturday.
In a joint statement released Dec. 3, the foreign ministers said Ukraine should “fully abide by its international commitments and … uphold the freedom of expression and assembly.”
“We urge the government and the opposition to engage in dialogue and launch a reform process,” they added.
Ukraine’s prime minister, Mykola Azarov, had earlier the same day apologized to protesters for the police crackdown, but opposition lawmakers failed in their attempt to pass a vote of no confidence in the country’s government.
The motion secured the support of 186 lawmakers in the parliament in Kiev, short of the 226 required for its passage, allowing a pause for breath following several days of mounting calls from campaigners for the government to resign.
The turmoil in Ukraine was sparked by the decision by the president, Viktor Yanukovych, not to sign an association agreement with the European Union that would have strengthened trade ties with the 28-member bloc.
Yanukovych has gone ahead with a visit to China, leaving Azarov to deal with the fallout from weekend rallies that saw more than 300,000 pro-EU campaigners assemble in Kiev’s Independence Square. Government offices have been blockaded by activists, preventing staff from going to work, and tents have been put up in the city center.
“On behalf of our government, I would like to apologize for the actions of our law enforcement authorities on [Independence Square]. The president and the government deeply regret that this happened,” Azarov said in comments reported by the BBC.
Although the government apologized for the crackdown, they also suggested there were sinister forces behind the upsurge in anger.
“We reach out our hand to you, push away the intriguers, the intriguers seeking power and who are trying to repeat the scenario of 2004,” said Azarov, referring to the “Orange Revolution” of late 2004 and early 2005 in which huge public protests led to the rerun of presidential elections that Yanukovych had won amid allegations of fraud. Viktor Yushchenko won the rerun polls, only for Yanukovych to secure the presidency after elections in 2010.
While he cited a lack of financial incentives as being the main issue behind his stalling on the EU deal, Yanukovych is thought to have stepped back from signing the agreement over concerns that relations with Russia could be harmed
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, whose administration has been looking to bring Ukraine into a customs union, recently branded the proposed pact with the EU a “major threat” to the economy in his country and in recent days he criticized the protests in Kiev as being “a rampage.”
Amid the widescale backlash over his decision to shelve the EU agreement, Yanukovych contacted the European Commission President Juan Manuel Barroso on Dec. 2 asking for talks to be restarted over certain aspects of the proposed deal. Barroso cave a cautious response, saying that the association agreement was not up for renegotiation.
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