Rival Ukraine Sides Observe Temporary Truce

The arrangement apparently resulted from a meeting between President Viktor Yanukovych and opposition leaders on Thursday, following deadly clashes between the protesters and the state's security forces.

At the protest camp on Independence Square, known as the Maidan, crowd jeered and chanted "revolution" and "shame" when Oleh Tyahnybok, a prominent opposition politician, asked the demonstrators for several more days of the truce, saying that Yanukovych had agreed to ensure the release of dozens of detained protesters and stop further detentions.

Other opposition politicians offered mixed reports on the outcome of the meeting, with Vitali Klitschko saying negotiations had brought little result. Both he and Tyanhnybok were booed at the barricades by the demonstrators.

Al Jazeera's Jennifer Glasse, reporting from Kiev, described the atmosphere in the Maidan as "quiet but very tense".

She also reported seeing fires started by protesters.

The protesters had apparently doused the barricades that had been set on fire, but lit them again during the evening.

Vitali Zakharchenko, Ukraine's interior minster, issued a statement guaranteeing that police would not take action against the Maidan protest camp.

Al Jazeera's Sue Turton, also reporting from Kiev, said there were reports that Yanukovych had agreed to release all political prisoners within the next three days, but protesters remained wary of that promise.

The developments come after hundreds of enraged protesters in several regions in western Ukraine, where Yanukvoych has little support, seized government offices and forced one governor loyal to Yanukovych to resign.

At least two people were killed by gunfire at the site of clashes in Kiev on Wednesday.