Ukraine: Protesters Demand President's Resignation Despite Deal

(Vatican Radio)-- Kyiv, Ukraine. Thousands of anti-government protesters have remained in Kyiv's Independence Square despite a European Union-brokered peace deal between President Viktor Yanukovich and the opposition aimed at ending Ukraine's unrest in which as many as 100 people died. Though President Yanokuvich agreed to halt early elections, many demonstrators want him to resign today.



Ukraine's famed boxing champion-turned opposition leader Vitali Klitschko faced boos and shouting after he tried to explain why he had signed an EU brokered peace deal to an angry crowd.



Soon, another speaker said they want nothing less than the president's resignation by Saturday morning 10 a clock local time.



Amid the turmoil, Klitschko later proposed a parliamentary resolution demanding the president steps down.



The stand-off underscored tensions within the protest movement about the future of Ukraine, after the country's deadliest clashes between protesters and security forces since gaining independence in 1991.



EARLY POLL


Under the deal between the opposition and president Yanukvoch, a presidential poll will be held after a constitution is introduced limiting presidential powers, but no later than December 2014.



Other conditions including handing over illegal weapons to authorities and ending violence in Kyiv and other cities.



Parliament has also begun working on other reforms, including changing the penal code. That's expected to pave the way for the release from prison of opposition leader and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.



The French, German and Polish Foreign ministers were in Kyiv to surprise the peace deal.


Polish Foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski said he realized that the agreement comes to late for the scores of people who died, including a young man who planned to marry a fellow protester.


"TRAGIC CASUALTIES"

“Of course it is late, it would have been much better to have this agreement before all the tragic casualties," Sikorski said. "But this agreement gives us hope of bringing Ukrainian politics back to where they belong, to the democratic institutions. And both sides are taking risks. But the EU will monitor the implementation of this agreement,” he added.



His German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier expressed hope. He said, "The agreement is mainly because people here in Ukraine found a way to work together, a way that they had not found in the past."


Officials say the American and Russian presidents have agreed that the deal needs to be swiftly

implemented.



Protests began in November after President Yanukovich refused to sign an association agreement with the EU, opting instead for closer ties with neighboring Russia.