AUSHEV CALLS ON KREMLIN TO DECLARE PRESIDENTIAL RULE IN CONFLICT AREA.

Meeting yesterday with Russian Security Council secretary Ivan Rybkin, Ingush president Ruslan Aushev called on the Kremlin to impose direct presidential rule in the Prigorodny district of North Ossetia. He said all other means have failed to enable Ingush refugees to return to the homes they fled in 1992. Aushev was speaking in the wake of renewed ethnic violence by local people against would-be returnees, including the murder last week of an elderly Ingush woman. Aushev says only a quarter of the 40,000 refugees who fled their homes in 1992 have so far been able to return; the rest are still living with friends and relatives in Ingushetia. At present, the federal government maintains a representative in the region whose task is to "monitor and coordinate" the situation. Aushev says this is not enough: if Moscow does not strengthen its presence, he says, there will soon be renewed bloodshed. North Ossetian president Akhsarbek Galazov has appealed for calm but opposes the idea of presidential rule in his republic. (Itar-Tass, RTR, July 15)

Izvestia