IMMINENT HOUSECLEAING IN RUSSIA’S FOREIGN MINISTRY?

A recent directive affecting some ninety diplomats of retirement age could be setting the stage for a major housecleaning atop Russia’s diplomatic establishment. According to sources within the Foreign Ministry, the directive instructs the affected personnel, many of whom are described as occupants of senior posts, to file by tomorrow a notice of their intention to retire. Some will reportedly be pensioned, others will be transferred to contract work lasting 1-2 years, and still others will receive new assignments.

The sources said that the directive is related to Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov’s reorganization of the ministry. Since his appointment in January three new deputy foreign ministers have been named, and one has been pensioned. Albert Chernyshev, until recently a deputy foreign minister, has been named ambassador to India and will shortly take up his new post. Another of Primakov’s deputies will soon be named as ambassador to a leading Asian nation, the sources said. Organizational changes within the ministry, as the sources observed, have thus far been directed primarily at enhancing the status of those departments dealing with policy toward the CIS. (Interfax, June 11. See also Monitor, May 7)

Russia’s Commercial Banks Protest Central Bank Restrictions.