Russia's Atomic Energy Ministry announced January 26 that Russian workers will begin construction in February of a controversial 1,000-megawatt light water nuclear reactor in Bushehr, Iran. The $800 million dollar project was to have started late last year, but reports surfaced that Tehran had failed... MORE

According to McCurry, the two presidents' telephone conversation was not without points of disagreement. McCurry said Clinton restated to Yeltsin his "strong views" on the need to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Chechnya. However, the U.S. president chose not "to second-guess" Russia's... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin said January 27 that Russia and Germany see eye-to-eye on virtually all international issues except that of NATO expansion. In what appeared to be an amicable meeting with German foreign minister Klaus Kinkel in Moscow, Yeltsin praised German support for Russian reforms... MORE

The Yeltsin-Clinton conversation launched what is to be a flurry of activity between Moscow and Washington in the coming months. Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin arrived in Washington yesterday for a five-day working visit that will include meetings in Washington with the heads of both... MORE

In a forty-minute telephone conversation January 26, Boris Yeltsin assured Bill Clinton that economic reform would continue in Russia and that Yeltsin would work for ratification of the START-II Treaty in the Duma. Speaking to reporters the next day, Yeltsin compared the conversation to a... MORE

1. Interfax, January 25 2. Financial Times, January 26 3. Reuter & Interfax, January 25 4. European Parliament session news press release, January 18; Interfax, January 25 5. Interfax, January 25 6. Izvestiya, January 26 7. Obshchaya gazeta, January 25-31 8. Interfax, Russian TV, NTV,... MORE

Speaking on Moldovan radio January 24, Russia's deputy foreign minister Sergei Krylov confirmed that president Boris Yeltsin had tasked him to secure Duma ratification of the updated and expanded Russian-Moldovan interstate treaty. The original treaty was signed in September 1990 by Yeltsin and Moldovan president... MORE

Kiev is unhappy with Russian president Boris Yeltsin's January 19 decree imposing excise duties on Ukrainian products imported by Russia. Ukrainian foreign economic relations and trade minister Serhy Osika said yesterday that Yeltsin's decree violates the two countries' free trade agreement, as well as Russia's... MORE

Negotiations in Kiev on transit fees for Russian oil piped through Ukraine adjourned January 24 after three days of fruitless meetings. Another round of talks between delegations representing Russia's Fuel and Power Ministry and Ukraine's oil and gas state committee is due to commence February... MORE

Lithuania's prime minister and internal affairs minister are clinging to their posts despite President Algirdas Brazauskas' repeated demands for their resignation. Brazauskas yesterday extended until January 29 a deadline for Adolfas Slezevicius to hand in his resignation as prime minister, together with that of Internal... MORE