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发帖数: 10330 | 1 Top U.S. official visits protesters in Kiev as Obama admin. ups pressure on
Ukraine president Yanukovich
KIEV -- U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland visited
Independence Square in the Ukrainian capital Kiev on Wednesday, the U.S.
embassy said, and an opposition leader said she talked to protesters.
A spokesman for the embassy said she had visited Maidan, where several
thousand of protesters were calling for the resignation of President Viktor
Yanukovich.
Nuland’s highly symbolic appearance in the square came a day after
Secretary of State John Kerry issued a strong statement, expressing the
United States' "disgust with the decision of Ukrainian authorities to meet
the peaceful protest ... with riot police, bulldozers, and batons, rather
than with respect for democratic rights and human dignity."
"This response is neither acceptable nor does it befit a democracy," said
Kerry, urging authorities to show "utmost restraint" and protect human life.
"As church bells ring tonight amidst the smoke in the streets of Kyiv, the
United States stands with the people of Ukraine. They deserve better."
35 PHOTOS
Kiev protests continue
Nuland was in Kiev, along with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, to
try to talk to the government and the opposition to work out a solution to
the crisis.
The U.S. Embassy in Kiev told CBS News that Nuland met Wednesday morning
with Yanukovych and was planning to deliver a statement outside the
Presidential Administration building.
Photos posted on Twitter showed Nuland shaking hands with security personnel
and there were many reports that she had helped distribute food to the
protesters.
Meanwhile, CBS News correspondent Clarissa Ward reported that police had
pulled back Wednesday morning after an overnight confrontation in which they
attempted to remove barricades and tents from a protest camp and scuffled
with demonstrators. The standoff went on for nine hours.
Buses carrying police drove away from Kiev's Independence Square early
Wednesday to cheers from protesters.
Another group of police that had been stationed outside the Kiev city hall
building, which has been occupied by protesters for weeks, also departed
from the scene.
Arseny Yatsenyuk, a top opposition leader, called it "a great victory."
Protesters have been gathering around the clock to demand the resignation of
the government in a crisis that is threatening the leadership of President
Yanukovych.
The protesters, who see Yanukovych as being too close to the Kremlin in
Moscow, took to the streets two weeks ago over his decision to pull out of
an association agreement with the European Union, which would have
established a free-trade zone and bolstered political and other ties between
the former Soviet republic and the European bloc.
The protests are the biggest since Ukraine's pro-democracy Orange Revolution
. Those protests, also centered on Independence Square, known as the Maidan,
succeeded in forcing the annulment of Yanukovych's fraud-tainted
presidential victory in 2004, and ushered his pro-Western opponents into
power. Yanukovych returned to the presidency in the 2010 vote, drawing on
support from heavily industrialized eastern Ukraine where there are many
Russian speakers. | O*******d
发帖数: 20343 | 2 美国大使在茉莉花革命时，还到北京王府井看热闹。 北京的警察比乌克兰的警察会对
付美国大使， 问话直接单刀直入。 | c****g
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