Polish FM: Kiev not planning state of emergency

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski on Monday said his Ukrainian counterpart had assured him Kiev would not declare a state of emergency in the capital over ongoing pro-democracy rallies. Some of the thousands of pro-EU demonstrators gathered in Kiev had speculated over the possibility, which EU envoy Aleksander Kwasniewski also brought up in a radio interview earlier Monday. Foreign Minister Leonid "Kozhara assured me that the Ukrainian government has no plans to declare a state of emergency" in Ukraine, Sikorski told reporters after the two foreign ministers spoke by phone. The Ukrainian prime minister's spokesman Vitali Loukianenko also denied the rumors, saying the matter had not come up in an emergency meeting at Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's residence on Sunday. At least 100,000 people took to the streets in Kiev on Sunday to demand Yanukovych's ouster for his rejection, under Russian pressure, of a pact seeking closer ties between the ex-Soviet state and the European Union. The pro-democracy rallies -- Ukraine's biggest since the 2004 Orange Revolution -- devolved into violent clashes, as security forces fired dozens of stun grenades and smoke bombs at masked demonstrators who were pelting police with stones and Molotov cocktails. On Monday, demonstrators declared a general strike and thousands blockaded government buildings in Kiev. Poland, a Ukraine neighbor and strong advocate of its entry into the EU, has closely monitored the situation. President Bronislaw Komorowski held a top-level meeting on the subject on Monday.