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CNN
December 12, 2013
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych intends to sign a deal on closer European Union ties, the bloc’s top diplomat has said, after weeks of mass protests that have rattled the Eastern European country.
Ukrainian protesters, angry about the government’s decision last month to spurn a free-trade agreement with the European Union in favor of closer economic ties with Moscow, have stood their ground in Kiev’s Independence Square, or Maidan, paralyzing the center of the capital.
They have remained there, undeterred by an overnight crackdown by authorities early Wednesday, in which police tore down barricades they had set up.
After meeting Yanukovych this week, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said he had assured her of his intent.
“He indicated he still wishes to sign the Association Agreement with the European Union,” she told CNN in Kiev on Wednesday.
“From our perspective, we think that’s good for this country. But the present crisis that’s happening right now needs to be resolved.”
A statement from the European Union in Brussels, Belgium, on Thursday quoting Ashton echoed this: “The President has assured me when I’ve met him that he does intend to sign the Association Agreement.”
In Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin briefly touched on the situation in the Ukraine in his State of the Nation address to the Federal Assembly on Thursday.
“I very much hope that all political forces of the country will manage to come to an agreement in the interest of the Ukrainian people and solve all the piles of problems,” he said.
