NEGOTIATIONS PROCEEDING OVER COALITION GOVERNMENT.

Chechen leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiev has the creation of a new coalition government as agreed to by Maskhadov and Lebed in their meeting on September 5 meeting. Who will lead the new government has not been revealed but it is widely expected to be Yandarbiev. (Interfax, September 6) Two or perhaps three members of Doku Zavgaev’s pro-Moscow government are expected to enter the coalition government, though they will hold relatively junior posts. The three have been identified as Minister of Railway Construction Nuzhden Daaev, Minister of Housing and Utilities Adni Osmaev, and (provisionally) Energy Minister Nurdi Usamov.

Zavgaev gave his grudging consent to the coalition government when he met with Lebed and presidential Chief-of-Staff Anatoly Chubais on September 4. His own participation in the coalition government has been ruled out, but he has so far refused urgings that he should resign voluntarily, saying that a new government should not be set up until after the parliamentary elections provisionally scheduled to be held in Chechnya next January. Meanwhile, Zavgaev’s government is said to have no intention of closing down, but instead is actively working in Urus-Martan in the north of the republic. (Nezavisimaya gazeta, September 7)

Lebed Assails U.S. for Attacks on Iraq.