KULIKOV AND LEBED CLASH AGAIN.

Closed hearings on Chechnya were held yesterday by a joint session of the two houses of the Russian parliament. Alarmed by the open feuding in his government, President Yeltsin ordered Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, National Security Adviser Aleksandr Lebed, and Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov to reconcile their positions beforehand. Lebed and Kulikov clashed again during the hearings but not, according to those present, as fiercely as on earlier occasions. (NTV, Interfax October 15) Nonetheless, Kulikov continued to insist that the Khasavyurt accords were a capitulation by Russia to the Chechen opposition. Lebed countered with the charge that the accords would not have been necessary had Grozny not fallen to the opposition in August, for which he blamed Kulikov himself; Kulikov’s deputy, Gen. Pavel Golubets; acting commander of the federal forces in Chechnya, Gen. Konstantin Pulikovsky; pro-Moscow Chechen leader Doku Zavgaev; and Zavgaev’s prime minister, Nikolai Koshman. Lebed said he had received documentary evidence to back his charges from Chechen chief-of-staff Aslan Maskhadov. (NTV, Interfax October 15)

Moscow Pins Its Hopes on Economic Agreement.