KIEV, Dec 8 (AFP) - Ukraine's opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko on Wednesday called on his supporters to return home and lift the blockades of government buildings after 17 days of mass protests during a tense political stand-off.
"You must leave and work with December 26 in mind. Only those guarding the tent camps will stay," he told a massive crowd in Kiev's central square.
Massive protests by Yushchenko supporters had catalpulted his face-off with outgoing President Leonid Kuchma to worldwide attention as thousands of activists clad in the orange of his campaign blocked government buildings in Kiev, massed in its main square and set up a sprawling tent camp on its main avenue.
Yushchenko said the blockade of the government buildings would be lifted, some handful of protestors would continue to picket there.
The tent camp on Kreshchyatik Avenue would stay and serve as a quasi headquarters for his campaign ahead of a new presidential vote on December 26, which pits him anew against Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, he said.
By late Wednesday, a blockade in front of the presidential administration was still in place. A protestor said the group blocking the building had not yet received instructions to lift their obstructions but would do so as soon as it did.
A November 21 presidential run-off between Yushchenko and Yanukovich, which has since been annulled because of fraud, sparked the opposition's stand-off with the ruling regime that split the nation in two polarized camps and drove a wedge in relations between Russia and the West.
12/08/2004 20:25 GMT - AFP