KIEV, December 11 (RIA Novosti) – A top US foreign affairs official slammed Ukraine’s police crackdown on anti-government protesters after a meeting Wednesday with the country’s president, Viktor Yanukovych, that was aimed at finding a peaceful resolution to the former Soviet state’s escalating political crisis.
Victoria Nuland, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, told journalists that her two-hour conversation with the president about the street protests was “tough but realistic.”
“I made it absolutely clear to him that what happened last night [during an attempted police breakup of protesters], what was happening in security terms was absolutely impermissible in democratic states,” she told reporters after the meeting.
Riot police and Interior Ministry troops clashed with opposition supporters in the capital early Wednesday, with protesters resisting repeated police attempts to clear out their main stronghold in Kiev’s central Independence Square.
Nuland, who walked around the square Wednesday afternoon to hand out bread to protesters and riot police, said Ukraine still has a chance to democratically resolve the conflict that began last month after the government suddenly announced it was postponing a long-awaited association agreement with the European Union in favor of strengthening ties with Moscow.
She said she had urged Yanukovych to resume talks with the EU and with the International Monetary Fund to get financial assistance for Ukraine's looming debt problem.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, has also met with Yanukovych and three former Ukrainian presidents over the last two days in efforts to find a solution to the crisis.
Protests in Kiev and other cities around Ukraine, which began as a reaction to the EU deal postponement, have intensified into a staunch anti-government movement, with opposition leaders demanding the dissolution of the government and calling for snap legislative and presidential elections.
The government rejected those demands, but said later it was ready for talks with the opposition.
