Ukraine Leader Meets Ex-Presidents after New Clashes

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on Tuesday met his three predecessors in a bid to defuse an escalating standoff with protesters, as several demonstrators were injured in new clashes with the security forces.

With concern growing over the risk of an even bloodier confrontation between police and protesters, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton was to arrive for talks in Kiev, where a top U.S. State Department diplomat was already.

At least 10 protesters were reported injured in fresh clashes with baton-wielding police in the early hours of Tuesday as interior troops and riot police forced protesters and removed barricades from around the government headquarters in the capital Kiev.

"More than 10 people are injured," a lawmaker from nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party, Yuriy Syrotyuk, told AFP. He said one suffered punctured lungs and several had broken arms or legs.

Police said two officers were injured in a crush as the authorities sought Sunday to reclaim control of the city center and remove barricades around the seat of government and the presidential administration.

Yanukovych met his three predecessors -- Leonid Kravchuk, Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yushchenko -- and voiced support for roundtable talks with the opposition.

But the opposition leaders of the protest movement said they would not sit down for talks before Yanukovych dismissed the government, punished riot police for crushing a smaller rally on November 30 and released arrested demonstrators.

"A round table does not fit very well in a square prison cell," said opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

Ashton was to meet Yanukovych and three opposition leaders for talks aimed at defusing the standoff.

The three opposition leaders, including Yatsenyuk, former world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko and the nationalist Svoboda party chief Oleg Tyagnybok, on Tuesday also met U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, a spokeswoman for Klitschko's party said.

Ashton voiced concern that efforts to end the stand-off between Ukrainian security forces and pro-EU demonstrators could be stymied by the raid on opposition party offices.

"These latest events seriously risk to derail the process," she said, calling on the Ukrainian authorities "to exercise utmost restraint and refrain from any further use of force, in order to give space for a negotiated solution out of the current political stalemate."

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Monday conveyed Washington's "deep concern" to Yanukovych.

Biden had called Yanukovych to emphasise the "need to immediately de-escalate the situation and begin dialogue with opposition leaders", a White House statement said.

Nuland on Monday also met Russian leaders in Moscow to voice U.S. concern about the situation in Ukraine.

Yanukovych's decision to scrap key trade and political agreements has plunged the ex-Soviet country into its most acute political crisis since the pro-democracy Orange Revolution in 2004.

Protests have gone into a third week, with both the authorities and the opposition showing few signs of compromise.

The party of jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko said armed law enforcement officers had raided its headquarters, taking away documents and computer servers.

The protesters remained defiant, with several hundred braving temperatures of around -7 degrees centigrade (19 degrees Fahrenheit) and falling snow to spend another night on Kiev's Independence Square.

A poll conducted by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology over the weekend said more than 70 percent of protesters were ready to protest "for as long as necessary".

On Sunday, hundreds of thousands on Sunday filled Independence Square to bursting point and dozens of masked protesters tore down a statue of Lenin.

Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) opened an investigation into an alleged attempt to seize power, in an apparent bid by the state to target key opposition figures.

The size of Sunday's protest, the third mass rally in successive weekends, increased the pressure on Yanukovych, who further galvanized his opponents by meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in almost total secrecy on Friday.

Several hundred, including protesters and police, were injured in clashes a week ago when a major demonstration descended into violence, the largest clashes in Ukraine's post-Soviet history.