NEW CONSTITUTION DRAFTED.

NEW CONSTITUTION DRAFTED.

On December 13, the prime minister of the pro-Moscow Chechen government, Stanislav Il’yasov, informed Izvestia that a draft of a new constitution for Chechnya has been sent to the Russian presidential administration. Il’yasov is convinced that the constitution will be approved within a year’s time by a Chechen republican parliament. “At the end of 2002 or the beginning of 2003,” he predicted, “we will have legislative assembly which will confirm the Basic Law” (Izvestia, December 13).