ALL-CAUCASUS SUMMIT DRAWING NEARER?

North Ossetian president and Moscow loyalist Akhsarbek Galazov said May 21 and 22 that a long-discussed all-Caucasus summit, which he has strongly promoted, is now scheduled to convene in North Ossetia’s capital Vladikavkaz June 4. The summit is to be chaired by Boris Yeltsin and attended by the heads of the Russian Federation’s republics and regions in the North Caucasus, as well as the presidents of the Transcaucasus countries of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Discussions are expected to center on settlement of the region’s conflicts. Yeltsin’s press secretary Sergei Medvedev said without elaborating that Yeltsin plans to attend a meeting in Vladikavkaz soon. (Itar-Tass, Interfax, May 20 & 21) Russian internal affairs minister Anatoly Kulikov has visited Vladikavkaz with a large delegation to look into security conditions there, adding some plausibility to expectations that a summit may now be imminent. A visit to North Ossetia would make it difficult for Yeltsin to avoid visiting Chechnya without political embarassment just before the presidential election.

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