Ukrainian PM resigns as anti-protest law scrapped

Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov offered his resignation to President Viktor Yanukovych on Tuesday, saying he hoped his departure would help create a peaceful settlement to two months of unrest that has convulsed the country.

President Viktor Yanukovych has accepted Azarov's resignation but has asked him to stay on in an acting role until a new government is formed.

A statement on Yanukovych's website on Tuesday, hours after Azarov announced he would resign, did not say when a new government was expected to begin work.

The 66-year-old Azarov announced his decision as parliament met for an emergency session to work out possible concessions to the opposition to end street protests in the capital Kiev and in other cities in which six people have been killed.

Azarov, a loyal lieutenant of Yanukovych since the latter was elected in February 2010, said he was offering to step down "with the aim of creating extra means for finding a social-political compromise, for the sake of a peaceful settlement of the conflict".

But in reality he has been publicly humiliated by Yanukovych's offer at the weekend to give his job to former economy minister Arseny Yatsenyuk, one of the opposition leaders, in an effort to stem the rising protests against his rule.

Ukraine lawmakers meanwhile scrapped anti-protest laws that have angered the opposition, in a move aimed at bringing a deadly two-month standoff to an end.

Applause broke out in parliament, including from opposition benches, after the vote passed with 361 deputies in favor and two against.

The laws were approved only this month by parliament, which is dominated by Yanukovych's Regions Party.

But Yanukovych on Monday agreed to abolish them after talks with protest leaders, who have made their repeal a key demand.

The opposition has been calling consistently for the resignation of the Azarov government since the onset of the crisis. But opposition leaders have shied away from the offer of top government posts by Yanukovych, seeing it as a trap intended to compromise them in front of their supporters on the streets.

Yatsenyuk, one of a "troika" of opposition leaders, formally turned down the offer of the top government job on Monday night.

Azarov has steered the nation's economy through hard times over four years, keeping the national currency tightly pegged to the dollar and refusing International Monetary Fund pressure to raise gas prices at home.

He backed the decision in November to walk away from a trade agreement with the European Union - the move which sparked the mass street protests - and it was Azarov who took the heat in parliament, defending the need for closer economic ties with Russia in a stormy debate with the opposition.

Parliament went into emergency session on Tuesday with ministers loyal to Yanukovych saying they would press for a state of emergency to be declared if the opposition leaders did not rein in protesters and end occupation of municipal and government buildings across the country.

Opposition leaders, who include boxer-turned-politician Vitaly Klitschko and nationalist Oleh Tyahnibok, are also pressing for the repeal of sweeping anti-protest laws backed in parliament by Yanukovych loyalists on Jan 16.

A government reshuffle had also been slated for discussion at the emergency session, but it was not clear now how this would proceed without Azarov.

AP - Reuters - AFP

(China Daily 01/29/2014 page10)