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Kiev protesters leave city hall Kiev protesters leave city hall
(about 3 hours later)
Protesters who have been occupying city hall in Kiev for months as part of anti-government unrest sweeping Ukraine have started to evacuate the building in a symbolic concession to ease tensions. Anti-government demonstrators in Ukraine's capital ended their nearly three-month occupation of Kiev city hall on Sunday, as promised in exchange for the release of all jailed protesters.
"City hall is almost completely evacuated," said Ruslan Andriyko of the protest movement, as people filtered out of the building in the city centre. But tensions remained high as hundreds stayed outside the building, vowing to retake it if the government failed to drop all criminal charges against the protesters.
He said demonstrators would remain outside the building for now as protests aimed at bringing down President Viktor Yanukovych continued. Prospects for an easing of the standoff between the opposition and President Viktor Yanukovych dimmed further when a top opposition leader, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, again turned down an offer to become prime minister in a coalition government.
City hall became the "headquarters of the revolution" after protesters stormed the building on 1 December following a crackdown on demonstrators the previous night. Yanukovych is expected to nominate a new prime minister in the near future, and western officials have been advocating for a coalition government drawn from the ruling party and the opposition.
The evacuation, a concession from the opposition, comes after authorities made a gesture of their own by releasing all protesters who had been detained since the unrest erupted in November, when Yanukovych rejected an EU pact in favour of closer ties with Russia. Yatsenyuk said he would not agree to take the post, which Yanukovych offered to him last month, unless the president made further concessions, including constitutional reform that reduced presidential powers.
"I cannot be bought with posts, Mr President. Go ahead and buy your henchmen," Yatsenyuk told the tens of thousands of protesters who turned out for a demonstration on Sunday.
Protesters handed control over city hall to international mediators from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, who were then supposed to hand it back to city authorities.
The compromise was reached after the last of 234 jailed protesters were released last week under an amnesty that also called for opposition activists to vacate government buildings in Kiev and elsewhere.
Hundreds of protesters clad in protective gear gathered outside the building, saying they would seize it again if charges were not dropped.
The demonstrators had seized Kiev city hall on 1 December, about a week after mass street protests broke out in response to Yanukovych's decision to abandon a long-anticipated political and economic treaty with the European Union.
The president, whose support base is in the Russian-speaking east and south of the country, turned to Russia instead for loans to keep Ukraine's economy afloat.