Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Arbuzov has stated Monday that his country and the European Union will designate a joint group to develop conditions for the signing of the Association Agreement.

The group is to also work on the parameters of the necessary technical and financial assistance to Ukraine, the Russian news agency Interfax reports, quoted by the Bulgarian Focus.

"We had conversations. Have have our views. We came to some agreements, but they are not written in a formal document, "said Arbuzov, who is a close ally to President Viktor Yanukovych.

Thousands of citizens and university students have been staging mass rallies for over a week in the Ukrainian capital Kiev against Yanukovych's refusal to sign the Association Agreement with the EU.

Rallies have been reported in the cities of Odessa and Lvov as well.

Ukraine made the decision on the EU deal over a week ago, saying it could not afford to break ties with Moscow. Russia is trying to bring Kiev into its own customs union

The signing of the association agreement was set for November 29 in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.

Last Friday - as Yanukovych attended the EU summit - about 10 000 demonstrators took to Independence Square, carrying Ukrainian and EU flags and chanting "Ukraine is Europe".

Around 4:30 am Saturday morning, Berkut, the special units of the Ukrainian police, dispersed the remaining demonstrators with batons and teargas and pushed them out of the central Maiadan square.

Tens of thousands of Ukrainians rallied again on Sunday despite a new government ban on protests in the city center until January 7 2014.

The rally proceeded peacefully until a group of protesters tried to storm the nearby presidential administration building with an excavator, causing riot police to use teargas, batons and flash grenades to disperse them.

Another group tried to demolish a monument of Lenin in downtown Kiev.

Dozens of people injured in the clashes were taken away by ambulance.

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