HONG KONG: Crowds of protesters who filled Hong Kong’s streets with demands for more democracy thinned dramatically Tuesday after student leaders and the government agreed to hold talks in the increasingly frustrated city.

Just a couple of days after tens of thousands of demonstrators thronged the city’s streets, only a few hundred protesters were scattered across the three main protest areas for much of the day. But the six-lane highway that cuts through the heart of Hong Kong’s business district remained blocked by demonstrators, once again snarling traffic and angering many commuters.

One young protester sleepily brushed his teeth as rush hour began, while a sleeping demonstrator leaned back in a nylon chair nearby, his mouth open and his eyeglasses askew.

Despite the dwindling numbers of activists on the streets, protest leaders insisted the movement was far from defeated, and vowed to walk away from negotiations if the police used force to clear away the remaining demonstrators.

Michael Leung, 14, wearing his school uniform and doing homework on the highway, said he had come to the protest zone on three days after school.

“You see now the number of people is decreasing because there has been no big action from the government and the police,” he said. “But I think if the government or police want to clear this area, then the people will come out again.” At the territory’s government headquarters, which had been blocked by protesters for a week, only a half dozen or so student protesters remained at the barricades. Eight policemen stood nearby, chatting among themselves.

On Tuesday night, a dozen policemen ringed a small group of pro-Beijing demonstrators as they marched near the protesters.

“It is true democracy we’re looking for!” one of the demonstrators cried into portable loudspeaker, as the group shouted her down.

Late Monday, Lau Kong-wah, the territory’s undersecretary of constitutional affairs, said the government and students had agreed on terms for talks, saying they would enter discussions on an equal footing. Lester Shum, a leader of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, confirmed the agreement, but said they had not discussed or reached a consensus on the agenda. A date for the meeting had not been set.

The dueling questions now are how long the demonstrators are willing to continue their protests — and how long until the government removes them.