Ukraine protest leader vague on premiership offer

Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych, second left, talks to opposition leaders Oleh Tyahnybok, first right, Vitali Klitschko, second right, and Arseniy Yatsenyuk, third right, in Kiev, Ukraine, Saturday Jan. 25, 2014. Ukraine’s embattled president on Saturday offered to make a top opposition leader the prime minister, but it was unclear if the overture would mollify the radical faction of protesters who have clashed with police for much of the last week. A statement on President Viktor Yanukovych’s website Saturday evening said he had offered the country’s No. 2 job to Arseniy Yatsenyuk, an ex-foreign minister who had led efforts to integrate Ukraine with the European Union. (AP Photo/Mykhailo Markiv, Pool)

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — A top Ukrainian protest leader says the opposition is ready to accept leadership of the country, but isn’t immediately accepting embattled President Viktor Yanukovych’s offer to become prime minister.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s statement Saturday several hours after Yanukovych’s offer of the premiership leaves the adversaries in Ukraine’s two-month-long political crisis still jockeying for position.

Yanukovych’s offer, coming as protester anger rises and spreads from the capital to a wide swath of the country, appeared to have been both a concession and an adroit strategy to put the opposition in a bind.

Accepting the offer could have tarred Yatsenyuk among protesters as a sell-out, but rejecting it would make him appear obdurate and unwilling to seek a way out of the crisis short of getting everything the opposition wants.

The opposition seeks Yanukovych’s resignation, early elections and the repeal of harsh anti-protest laws that set off a paroxysm of clashes between demonstrators and police over the past week.

Yanukovych has called for a special session of parliament Tuesday and said it could discuss repealing those laws.

“Tuesday is judgment day,” Yatsenyuk told a large crowd of protesters on Independence Square. “We do not believe any single word. We believe only actions and results.”

Associated Press

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Ukraine protest leader vague on premiership offer