Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych met with the opposition today for crunch talks in search of a way out of a crisis that has turned parts of Kiev into a battle zone, as pressure builds on him from the EU.
The opposition has billed the talks at the presidential adminstration in Kiev as a last chance for the authorities to offer concessions before protesters become even more aggressive.
The clashes, which came after two months of protests over Yanukovych's failure to sign an integration deal with the European Union under Russia pressure, led to near apocalyptic scenes in the Ukrainian capital as the demonstrations became engulfed in flames.
Yanukovych today demanded an extraordinary session of parliament to ease the crisis which has already seen four protesters shot dead and one killed in a fall, according to activists.
Speaker Volodymyr Rybak said parliament would discuss the protesters' demands for the government's resignation and the annulment of a controversial anti-protest law at a session expected next week, the presidency said in a statement.
But he did not mention early presidential elections, a key opposition demand.
"You know that recent mass riots have been accompanied by violence, bloodshed and arson. Today, the situation requires a quick resolution," Yanukovych told Rybak, the statement said.
Fatherland party leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk, nationalist leader Oleg Tyagnybok and world boxing champion and UDAR (Punch) party leader Vitali Klitschko began much-delayed talks with Yanukovych in the evening, the presidency said.
Klitschko had earlier brokered a truce in the violence between protesters and police for the duration of the talks.
"Keep the barricades in place but (be) calm until the talks finish," he said.
AFP correspondents at the scene of the fighting on Grushevsky Street confirmed the truce appeared to be holding.
The protesters have marked their frontline with a semicircle of burning tyres which have sent a rancid plume of black smoke billowing into the Kiev sky and is visible throughout the city.
However under the terms of the truce, protesters allowed police to douse the fires with water cannon and now only white smoke was rising at the scene.
Both sides remained quietly behind their battle lines next to the stadium of the legendary Dynamo Kiev football club in central Kiev.
Yatsenyuk had warned the protesters yesterday that Yanukovych had 24 hours to agree a peaceful solution.
