You're reading: Kravchuk, Kuchma, Yuschenko propose national roundtable, resume talks with EU

Three ex-presidents of Ukraine: Leonid Kravchuk, Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yuschenko, have said they support the Ukrainians who are protesting against the government's refusal to sign the EU Association Agreement, but warn there are possible dangerous consequences.

“We express our sympathy with the peaceful civil actions of hundreds
of young Ukrainians…It’s unacceptable to settle strategic issues of
Ukraine’s development without a public discussion and rational
explanation,” reads a joint report from three ex-presidents posted on
Wednesday.

“Firstly Ukrainian people went to the streets with non-political
demand, which met unprecedented mass support… However, a way out of the
crisis hasn’t been found yet. The crisis is getting worse and we see a
risk of control over the situation being lost,” the report read.

According to the presidents, “the apogee was use of extreme force against peaceful demonstrators.”

“There was a dangerous precedent in the history of Ukrainian
independence, when the authorities used force to disperse a peaceful
Maidan. The cruelty with which police subdivisions acted, should not
just be condemned in public, but also punished according to the
Ukrainian law as absolutely unacceptable in a democratic country,” the
letter reads.

The presidents said the parties must urgently abandon any attempts to
settle political issues with the use of force. Calls to seize
administrative buildings, revolutionary actions, the introduction of the
emergency state, disobedience of definite cities and regions to central
authorities, contraposition of Ukrainians from East and West should be
stopped as dangerous and unpredictable actions,” the presidents said.

The politicians see “a way-out in open dialogue with the civil society.”

“To settle the political crisis it’s necessary to conduct a
nationwide roundtable involving real institutions of civil society, who
have earned the respect of Ukrainian citizens and could logically and
fairly present their position. The valuable foundation of such a
dialogue should be democracy, equality, freedom of expression of
somebody’s position, the European aspirations of the Ukrainian people,
and the trust and honesty of all participants,” the presidents said.

They also called for a resumption of the talks with European institutions concerning the signing of the Association Agreement.