MOSCOW CONTEMPLATING RETURN TO KABUL?

A Russian diplomat said yesterday that Moscow was near to a decision on whether it would resume activities at the Russian embassy in Kabul. According to Aleksandr Oblov, continued upheaval in the Afghan capital is now the only obstacle to a return of permanently stationed Russian diplomats. Oblov also suggested that a group of Russian technical specialists would probably soon be sent to Kabul in order to assess the condition of the Russian embassy building there, which has been damaged by shelling. (Itar-Tass, July 18) Oblov had spoken in similar terms of a possible reopening of the Russian embassy on June 25, but a Foreign Ministry spokesman had denied knowledge of any such plans. Russian troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989 and embassy staff followed three years later, in 1992. More than a million citizens of Afghanistan, most of them civilians, are believed to have killed been during the Soviet Union’s ten-year occupation, and the country has been torn by factional fighting since the Soviet withdrawal. (Itar-Tass, AP, June 25)

Russian Parliament Reaches Compromise over Central Bank’s Profits.