Moldovan president Mircea Snegur "dismissed" defense minister Lt. General Pavel Creanga and "appointed" a new acting minister by decree March 15 in a prima facie violation of the constitution, which gives those powers to the prime minister and the parliament. Creanga refused earlier this month... MORE

The president of Kyrgyzstan, Askar Akayev, described the Russian Duma action as "a very hazardous step fraught with major international consequences" that was also damaging to the CIS. Akayev professed confidence that bilateral Kyrgyz-Russian relations and his own upcoming visit to Moscow would not be... MORE

Amid a continuing outcry in Yerevan, 105 out of 190 parliamentary deputies signed yesterday a statement describing the Russian Duma action as "an example of cynical disregard for civilized interstate relations" fraught with "perilous consequences and a potential for bloodshed." More deputies are expected to... MORE

The president of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov, told a news conference yesterday that the Russian Duma resolutions are "absolutely unfulfillable." He recalled that his country had voted for independence in a referendum October 27, 1991, and celebrates its independence on that date. Turkmenistan's independence is "an... MORE

President Nursultan Nazarbayev issued a special statement repeating a warning which he said he had first issued at the January 19 CIS summit that "any actions seeking to restore the USSR can lead to great destabilization and bloodshed." While professing a conviction that "there is... MORE

Transdniester Supreme Soviet chairman Grigory Marakutsa yesterday described the Russian Duma action as "hasty and ill-conceived... It should be obvious to all that the USSR can not be reconstituted in its previous form. The resolutions will do nothing to amplify integration processes and may even... MORE

Addressing yesterday an official conference on drafting a Russia-Belarus integration treaty, President Aleksandr Lukashenko described the Duma resolutions as "accelerating the two countries' unification process" which, he stressed, had already been initiated and was being led by himself and Boris Yeltsin. Implicitly absolving the Russian... MORE

which are not members of the CIS, are aware that the Russian Duma action potentially targets all former Soviet republics. Estonian prime minister Siim Kalas yesterday expressed serious concern over the Duma action because "it reflected Russia's prevailing political trends, despite the Russian government's attempts... MORE

. During talks in Moscow described by both sides yesterday as amicable, the foreign ministers of Russia and Greece declared their intention to broaden bilateral economic relations. Yevgeny Primakov and Theodoros Pangalos also claimed to have found much common ground on international issues. Although Greece... MORE

While making clear their belief that both sides in the Chechen conflict are guilty of human rights abuses, one European body appeared yesterday to put the onus for ending the war on the Chechen rebels, while another focused on the brutality of Moscow's military operations... MORE