Ukraine's Yanukovych said to agree not to enforce anti-protest laws KIEV, Ukraine, Jan. 21 (UPI) -- Ukraine's government agreed not to publish new laws Tuesday that severely restrict protests, meaning they won't go into effect, an opposition lawmaker said. The concession, which President Viktor Yanukovych did not confirm, came during late-night talks between Yanukovych representatives and opposition deputies, opposition Member of Parliament Andriy Pavlovsky told Russian business news channel RBC-TV. Opposition leaders said they themselves would not participate in talks unless Yanukovych did. But Yanukovych called for "dialogue" and "compromise" late Monday in a nationally televised address. "I understand your participation in massive demonstrations, am ready to listen to your positions and jointly find a way to settle existing differences," he said. He did not address Independence Square protesters' demands that he and his government resign and new elections be held. Yanukovych has been president since February 2010. Some in the opposition said they believed his offer of talks was a trick to calm tensions and buy time before launching a crackdown, the Wall Street Journal reported. Expectations ran high of further escalation of protests in coming days, the Financial Times said. Opposition leaders and protesters are angry Yanukovych declined to sign a sweeping free-trade agreement with the European Union and instead negotiated a multibillion-dollar financial aid package from Russia. "The condition for the beginning of negotiations is canceling the draconian laws on censorship and prosecution," Pavlovsky told RBC-TV. [Yanukovych's representatives] gave preliminary consent not to print the laws. In this case they won't come into force," he said. The opposition hopes to get Parliament to annul the laws, Pavlovsky added. Yanukovych signed the anti-protest legislation Friday after it was hastily adopted in Parliament by a hand vote. The new measures provide for hefty fines and up to 15 years in prison for setting up tents and stages in public places. They were expected to be published in the government newspaper Tuesday. The late-night meeting, at the office of National Security and Defense Council chief Andriy Kluyev, followed a second day of activist-police bloodshed in the capital, Kiev. Hundreds of protesters, mostly masked and wearing construction helmets banned by the new laws, threw Molotov cocktails and cobblestones at riot police and banged on makeshift drums. Police threw stones back at protesters, fired rubber bullets and sprayed water on the ground in front of the protesters' lines that turned to ice in freezing temperatures, the Journal reported. Both sides said scores of people were injured since the clashes erupted Sunday. The Interior Ministry said police had the right to fire on protesters to defend themselves. General Prosecutor Viktor Pshonka called activist attacks on police "a crime against the state." Yanukovych said in a statement his government would "use all legal and other means envisaged by the laws of Ukraine and other measures to guarantee civic peace and security of all our compatriots." Opposition leader Vitali Klitschko, a former heavyweight boxing champion, called on Ukrainians from other cities to converge on Kiev. Get into cars and buses. You are needed here to ensure victory belongs to Ukraine, not Yanukovych," Klitschko was quoted by the Financial Times as saying. Ukraine is experiencing events that it has not seen since independence, which people could not have imagined in their wildest dreams: battles in the very center of the capital. The regime ... has declared war on the Ukrainian people. I call upon all citizens and patriots to protect their country and future," he said.