KYIV. Dec 2 (Interfax) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and the Ukrainian government led by Mykola Azarov should resign following the forcible breakup of an opposition rally at Independence Square in Kyiv, says Vitali Klitschko, the leader of the Ukrainian opposition party UDAR.
"Responsibility rests both with those who issued an order to disperse the Euromaidan [the pro-European rally at IndependenceSquare in Kyiv] and those who beat defenseless people," Klitschko said on Friday.
UDAR demands that Interior Minister Vitaly Zakharchenko and the government led by Mykola Azarov resign and that early presidential and parliamentary elections be called.
"The brutal beating of a peaceful protest rally at Maidan [the Independence Square] and unlawful and disproportionate use of force against defenseless people are examples of unmitigated barbarity of the ruling regime led by Yanukovych," the UDAR press service quoted Klitschko as saying.
The authorities thwarted the signature of an association agreement with the EU to untie their hands for lawlessness, as such actions would have been unthinkable in a truly European country, he said.
"By resorting to the forcible breakup of the Maidan, Yanukovych sealed his own doom, and I am sure both Ukrainian society and the international community will properly assess these actions," Klitschko said.
He called on Ukrainian citizens to gather at central squares of their cities and villages, protest against the authorities' actions and send their representatives to Kyiv.
The signature of an association agreement between Ukraine and the EU was supposed to be the main event during the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius on November 28-29. However, the Ukrainian government announced a week before the summit that it suspended preparations for signing the document, motivating this step by the association's excessive costs for the national economy. The document was not signed at the summit, which spurred protests across Ukraine, which have been continuing for several days. Early on Saturday, police task forces broke up the so-called Euromaidan, i.e. an opposition protest rally at Independence Square in Kyiv.