Ukraine president signs peace deal that curbs his powers

KIEV // Ukraine’s opposition leaders yesterday signed a peace deal with president Viktor Yanukovich that calls for an early election, a new constitution and a unity government.

Ukraine’s newly empowered parliament also fired the country’s despised interior minister and voted to free Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister who has spent more than two years in jail for what supporters say are politically tainted charges.

It was not clear, however, how well the deal would go down with all the sides involved in Ukraine’s protracted political crisis. A senior Russian MP immediately criticised it as being crafted for the West, and Ukrainian protesters angry over police violence showed no signs of abandoning their sprawling encampment in central Kiev.

Still, if it holds, the ambitious agreement could be a major breakthrough in a months-long crisis over Ukraine’s future, a standoff that worsened this week and left scores dead and hundreds wounded in the worst violence the country has seen since it became independent in 1991.

Within hours of the signing, Ukraine’s parliament voted to restore the 2004 constitution that limits presidential authority, clawing back some of the powers that Mr Yanukovych had pushed through for himself after being elected in 2010.

Although he retains an apparent majority in parliament, he loses the power to nominate the prime minister and to fire the cabinet. Parliamentarians also approved an amnesty for protesters involved in violence.

The Verhovna Rada parliament then voted to fire the interior minister, Vitali Zakharchenko, who is widely despised and blamed for ordering police violence, including the snipers who killed scores of protesters Thursday in central Kiev.

The next order of business was Ms Tymoshenko. Legislators voted 310-54 to decriminalise the count under which she was imprisoned, meaning that she is no longer guilty of a criminal offense.

“Free Yulia! Free Yulia!” legislators chanted after the vote.

It’s not immediately clear when she might be released from the jail in the eastern city of Kharkiv.

Under pressure to quit from mass protests in Kiev, Mr Yanukovich was forced to make a series of concessions to his pro-European opponents.

In a deal mediated by the European Union, Mr Yanukovich agreed to a presidential election this year, although no date had been set. The vote had been due in March next year.

“There are no steps that we should not take to restore peace in Ukraine,” Mr Yanukovich, who Russia supports, said in announcing his concessions before the deal was signed. “I announce that I am initiating early elections.”

Mr Yanukovich, 63, a towering former Soviet regional transport official with two convictions for assault, did not smile during a signing ceremony lasting several minutes.

Opposition leader Vitaly Klitschko, a retired world boxing champion, switched his nameplate to avoid sitting next to the president.

The European mediators signed as witnesses but a Russian envoy present did not sign the document.

With Ukraine caught in a geopolitical tug-of-war between Russia and the West, at least 77 people have been killed this week in the worst violence since the independent country emerged from the wreckage of the Soviet Union in 1991.

While EU leaders applauded what European Council president Herman Van Rompuy called a “necessary compromise”, Russian president Vladimir Putin’s spokesman declined to comment.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said implementing the accord would be crucial and would be “very challenging”. Anti-government protesters remained encamped in Kiev’s central Independence Square, known as the Maidan or “Euro-Maidan”, and the scene of the bloodshed this week.

Some car horns hooted and fireworks were lit to celebrate the accord, but many were suspicious, noting that Mr Yanukovich had cut deals before and was still in office.

“He has to go today. We won’t accept elections. He gave the order to kill, so how can we live with him now until December?” said Vasily Zakharo, 40, from the western Lviv region.

“That’s our opinion and that’s the decision of the Maidan.”

Before the deal was signed, armed police briefly entered the parliament building while MPs were holding an emergency session, but they were quickly ejected, said opposition leader Arseny Yatsenyuk. Members exchanged punches when speaker Volodymyr Rybak tried to adjourn proceedings.

Opposition deputies were angered because it would mean delaying a possible vote on a resolution pressing for constitutional changes to restrict the president’s powers. The speaker left the chamber and debate continued.

* Associated Press and Reuters