YELTSIN INSISTS ON RUSSIA’S TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY IN TALKS WITH CHECHNYA.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin acknowledged yesterday that talks between the federal government and Chechnya are "difficult." The talks were broken off over the weekend. (See Monitor, September 29) "They have their version of the agreement as a treaty between states, but this cannot be," the president said. He added that the future document would be "like the ones we signed with Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, and our other republics." (Itar-Tass, September 29)

With that statement Yeltsin confirmed that he has no intention of backing away from the principle of Russia’s territorial integrity. Clearly, the strict position taken earlier by Russian Security Council secretary Ivan Rybkin on observing this same principle was not his own initiative, but had been cleared with the Russian president. Significantly, Yeltsin did not react to Chechen first deputy prime minister Movladi Udugov’s proposal to hold a meeting at a higher [presidential] level. Yeltsin told journalists yesterday that he has no plans to meet with Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov.

Nemtsov Advocates Economic Isolation for Chechnya.