Chernomyrdin Supports Lebed Deal

But there was no sign yet of a meeting between security chief Lebed and Yeltsin, whose spokesman again reassured the world that the president was well.

Kremlin press service chief Igor Ignatyev said Yeltsin was in brisk mood during his vacation and he would meet Chernomyrdin at his holiday home on Monday to discuss the Chechen peace deal.

Yeltsin, who suffered two heart attacks last year, has not met Lebed since the latest peace missions and he has rarely been seen in public. The former paratroop general is Yeltsin's special envoy in breakaway Chechnya.

Itar-Tass news agency quoted a Kremlin source as saying that Yeltsin had undergone a course of preventative treatment. Ignatyev said this had been nothing more than regular checks, but he could not give the results.

 

On Saturday Lebed declared an end to the Chechen conflict, in which tens of thousands of people have died, after signing an agreement with rebel chief-of-staff Aslan Maskhadov.

Lebed's office said Chernomyrdin had backed the agreement, which postponed for five years any decision on Chechnya's independence, the issue that lay at the heart of the war. Analysts have speculated that Lebed and Chernomyrdin have been wrangling over Chechnya to further their own careers if something happens to Yeltsin and elections are held early.

As well as deferring the question of Chechnya's political status, Lebed's agreement with Maskhadov also provided for a joint commission to monitor troop withdrawals and the economic reconstruction of war-shattered Chechnya.

An earlier ceasefire signed by the two men has held although some commanders in Chechnya have yet to be convinced the war is actually over.

Interfax news agency quoted the head of Russian interior ministry forces, Anatoly Shkirko, as saying he was not ready to accept that the fighting had finished.

One would like to believe that the war was over but I seriously doubt it, Shkirko told the agency.

He said the Chechens were breaking the ceasefire by leaving some 2,000 of their fighters in Grozny when only 270 were allowed to form the joint Chechen/Russian patrols which are monitoring the city.

Shkirko said this had forced him to leave some of his men in the city.

Tass said the separatists had installed their own regional commanders in several towns, ousting leaders installed there by the Russian-backed administration of Doku Zavgayev.

Zavgayev, who is resented by the separatists as a Moscow puppet, told Tass he expected to play an important role in a future coalition government.

Other members of the government have accused Lebed of handing Chechnya over to bandits.

Separatist leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev said the agreement was a serious step towards peace but he warned of a danger coming from the party of war those in Russia who want to continue the 21-month conflict.