European Union Suspends Trade Talks With Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine — The European Union on Sunday broke off talks with Ukraine on the far-reaching trade deal that protesters here have been demanding for weeks, and a top official issued a stinging, angry statement all but accusing Ukraine’s president of dissembling during the negotiations.

A protester waving a flag near the Ukrainian Security Service building in Kiev. Protesters chanted, “Shame! Shame!”

The bloc’s enlargement chief, Stefan Füle, wrote on Twitter that the words and deeds of the president, Viktor F. Yanukovich, were growing “further and further apart,” even as the Ukrainian crisis was showing signs of deepening. On Sunday, hundreds of thousands of protesters clogged a main plaza and surrounding streets in Kiev, the capital, rivaling earlier weekend rallies in size.

The statement by Mr. Füle, coming amid this protest, sent a pointed message to the crowd that Ukraine’s government might well have to change before the European Union agreement could be revived.

Mr. Füle said that further discussions on the trade agreement would hinge on receiving clear signals from Ukraine’s government, but that he had received no response. “Work on hold,” he wrote in a subsequent Twitter post, saying he had told a Ukrainian deputy prime minister, Sergei Arbuzov, that the government had to show a “clear commitment to sign.”

Officials in Brussels, the headquarters of the European Union’s executive arm, the European Commission, confirmed the decision to suspend the talks with Ukraine.

After years of negotiations with Brussels, Mr. Yanukovich was to sign the European Union association agreement late last month, but then he announced that he would not because austerity measures demanded in a related International Monetary Fund loan were too stringent and because Russia had threatened trade sanctions.

His government began talks on rival trade and economic deals with Russia, even as Mr. Yanukovich insisted that he intended eventually to sign the European Union deal.

Perplexed, high-level Western diplomats traveled to Kiev last week. Mr. Yanukovich told the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, and an assistant secretary of state from the United States, Victoria Nuland, that he intended to sign the European trade deal, and would not join the rival Russian-backed customs union.

Ms. Ashton, after returning from her mission to Ukraine, said in Brussels on Thursday that “Yanukovich made it clear to me that he intends to sign the association agreement.”

By Friday, though, the Ukrainian government had again issued orders to ministers to plan to reconcile Ukrainian customs and trade legislation with the Russian-led customs union, not the European Union, the newspaper Ukrainskaya Pravda reported. That added to a sense of drift in the government all the more ominous for the large, sustained protests in the capital.

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, both members of the Foreign Relations Committee, appeared onstage at Independence Square and expressed American solidarity with the protesters’ goals.

“We are here to support your just cause: the sovereign right of Ukrainians to determine your own destiny,” said Mr. McCain, a former Republican presidential nominee, to much applause. He added: “The destiny you seek lies in Europe. Ukraine will make Europe better, and Europe will make Ukraine better.”

At a news conference later, Mr. McCain and Mr. Murphy said the Senate would consider imposing sanctions against the Ukrainian government should there be any further violence against protesters. Mr. Murphy said he had accompanied Mr. McCain here to show that there was bipartisan support for the Ukrainian demonstrators, and he said he was impressed by the peaceful nature of the rally.

While Mr. McCain chastised Russia for its role in derailing Ukraine’s plans to sign the trade and political accords with Europe, describing it as interference in Ukraine’s sovereign affairs, he said he saw no contradiction in standing onstage before a crowd that had called for the ouster of Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and his government. He called it “my duty to speak out” on behalf of the Ukrainian people and human rights.

Mr. Murphy also said it was clear that the protest movement had staying power. “We understand protesters on the square won’t go away until there are real reforms proposed by this government, or another government,” he said.

After the senators met with Mr. Yanukovich on Sunday, his office posted a statement saying he had “once again stressed the immutability of European integration by Ukraine.”

The statement also said Mr. Yanukovich had assured Mr. McCain and Mr. Murphy “that the government will do everything possible to ensure the right to peaceful demonstrations” and to fully investigate allegations of police violence during a crackdown on protesters on Nov. 30.

Adding to the crowds in the capital on Sunday, Mr. Yanukovich’s political party, the Party of Regions, bused in thousands of supporters from provincial towns to gather in a park about a mile from Independence Square, placing the two large crowds in proximity.

As that had raised the prospect of fights, organizers of the antigovernment protest sent activists to the pro-government crowd to hand out friendly fliers. One said, referring to a common name for the main square, “Maidan is love.” They invited the pro-government protesters for tea and dinner, if they wanted. By late Sunday, no large fights had broken out.

Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, the leader in Parliament of the opposition Fatherland party and one of the main protest organizers, told members of the huge crowd that they would need to be especially vigilant on Tuesday, when Mr. Yanukovich planned to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

The two leaders have been in talks regarding economic aid, but many in the opposition are deeply fearful that Mr. Yanukovich is prepared to make a deal that would commit Ukraine to joining the customs union that Russia has created with Kazakhstan and Belarus. Such a step, they fear, would close the door to a trade agreement with Europe — at least for the near future.