KIEV, January 27 (RIA Novosti) – Anti-government demonstrators on Monday left the Justice Ministry building in Kiev occupied on Sunday night, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry said.
“The [opposition] activists, including members of the Common Cause movement led by Alexander Danilyuk, have abandoned the building of the Ukrainian Justice Ministry,” the ministry said in a statement.
“A group of investigators is working inside the building,” the statement said.
The Justice Ministry's storming was part of a new wave of unrest that swelled over the weekend after the opposition rejected President Viktor Yanukovych's offer to hand over the premiership and deputy premiership to protest leaders.
Ukraine’s Justice Minister Olena Lukash warned earlier on Monday that she would have to appeal to the country’s National Security and Defense Council to declare a state of emergency if the building was not vacated promptly.
Yanukovych is currently holding a meeting with key opposition leaders – UDAR party head Vitali Klitschko, the head of the Batkivshchyna party’s parliamentary faction Arseny Yatsenyuk and the leader of the nationalist Svoboda party Oleg Tyagnibok – in a fresh attempt to resolve an escalating political crisis in the country.
The opposition is insisting that the government call early elections and repeal a recent anti-protest law.
Anti-government protests in Ukraine began last November in the capital following the president’s decision to delay an association agreement with the EU in favor of closer ties with Russia, and have since spread to the country’s central and western regions.
While initially focused on the EU decision, discontent in Ukraine has steadily taken on a more general anti-government character.
At least two protesters have been killed in the unrest, and several government buildings have been occupied by radical demonstrators.
