Yeltsin, Kohl Vow To Solve Nato Row

Kohl said Yeltsin, whose cardiac problems have aroused Western anxiety about his long-term grip on power, was fully active. The two held informal talks near Moscow.

They spent more than four hours at the Rus hunting lodge where they ate wild boar, strolled in the grounds and planned a lakeside holiday together like old friends. Kohl was the first Western leader to meet the 65-year-old Kremlin leader since he dropped out of sight shortly before his re-election in July.

Yeltsin broke months of silence last week by announcing he would have a heart operation in Moscow at the end of the month.

 

Both men beamed broadly as they embraced before Kohl left.

Yeltsin, wearing a camouflage bush hat, seemed at ease and relatively well in television footage, although he appeared not to join Kohl on a short motorboat trip.

Plans to admit former Soviet-bloc states into the West's Nato defence alliance, strongly opposed by Moscow, dominated the political discussions, Kohl said.

Yeltsin had agreed that, once he had recovered, he would play a very active part in talks to resolve the dispute.

Yeltsin said he was fully satisfied with the warm and frank discussions with Kohl.

We agreed to continue intensive negotiations at various levels, the presidential press service quoted Yeltsin telling Russian reporters.

The question is not simple, but I hope that by the European summit in Lisbon in December 1996 we will be able jointly to find a wise solution, he said, referring to a planned summit of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Kohl told reporters: It's a complex situation...but we are both of the opinion...that this subject should be brought to a conclusion in 1997.

Russian doctors say the president's illness is to be remedied by a routine bypass of clogged cardiac arteries.

But it has prompted speculation of a power struggle in the Kremlin and has worried Western leaders, who see Yeltsin as the guarantor of stability for Russia's fledgling democracy.

Kohl said he had brought Yeltsin best wishes from various world leaders, including the French and US presidents.

President Yeltsin was fully active throughout these discussions, Kohl said.

Of course you can see that he is facing a serious operation. He knows this and talks about it.

Boris Yeltsin is very optimistic that this procedure, which is essential...will be successful, he said before flying home.

The president has come under pressure to transfer power to Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin until he recovers, although he is not obliged to and the constitution is far from clear.

Kremlin security chief Alexander Lebed said on Friday the time had come to name Chernomyrdin to rule temporarily.

The communist Speaker of the State Duma lower chamber of parliament, Gennady Seleznyov, also called for Chernomyrdin to step in.

But Kremlin chief-of-staff Anatoly Chubais, who with Lebed and Chernomyrdin completes a trio of jostling Kremlin rivals, said there was no need to hand over power yet.

Itar-Tass news agency quoted Chubais as saying Yeltsin was in normal working condition.

So there are no grounds for raising the question of handing over the presidential powers.

Interfax quoted Chubais saying that, if Yeltsin did hand over power, it would last only a short time.

It would be for a matter of hours, days, a couple of days, Chubais said.

Kohl said Yeltsin seemed in full control and had discussed who would control Russia's nuclear arsenal while he was on the operating table.

Kohl would not reveal what the president said.

The two leaders touched on last week's US air raids on Iraq but reached no new conclusions, Kohl said.

He told Yeltsin Western leaders hoped to see a real end to the war in Chechnya, where Yeltsin's envoy Lebed agreed a peace deal last week.

On a lighter note, the gourmet chancellor expressed particular delight at being served boar for lunch which, so an unidentified source told Tass, Yeltsin had killed himself.

Kremlin spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky was quoted as saying Yeltsin hoped to visit the German spa of Baden-Baden early next year to be presented with a prize by the German press.

He also said Yeltsin and Kohl agreed to a one- or two-day holiday together next year on Lake Baikal in Siberia.