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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MNI who wrote (14532)	9/17/1999 12:50:00 PM
From: MNI	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

[sorry, late EDIT:] it should have been: [... and MUST feel like this is a sudden turn of the boat ...]

To: MNI who wrote (14532)	9/17/1999 5:49:00 PM
From: Douglas V. Fant	Respond to of 17770

MNI, I was wondering when the KGB and the CIA would start cooperating on matters in the Caucausus. Here is the announcement by President Clinton. I would not be surprised to see Russian troops re-enter Chechnya now, especially since the killings Russia says that Chechnya has violated the 1996 accords. That to me is a prelude to cancelling them in diplomatic talk.... Russia upper house backs PM's tough stance on terror September 17, 1999 Web posted at: 12:43 PM EDT (1643 GMT) MOSCOW (Reuters) -- Prime Minister Vladimir Putin won strong backing from Russia's upper house of parliament on Friday for a security crackdown following a rash of bomb blasts which have killed nearly 300 people and shocked the nation. Putin delivered a report on the blasts and on the situation in Russia's unruly North Caucasus region to a closed session of the Federation Council, which groups powerful regional bosses. "The senators backed the government's toughest measures...The bandits must be annihilated," Putin, 46, told reporters after his address. Five explosions in the space of a week, two in Moscow, have fed a sense of outrage among the Russian public and spurred feverish speculation that a state of emergency may be declared. Russian share prices tumbled sharply on Friday on market rumours that President Boris Yeltsin might sack Putin over the crisis and replace him with former paratroop general Alexander Lebed, now a Siberian governor. Lebed himself, in comments quoted by Itar-Tass news agency, described the situation in the country as "very explosive." U.S. President Bill Clinton, clearly alarmed that the wave of bombings might destabilise Russia, said Washington would help Moscow fight terrorism. "In the days and weeks ahead we will intensify our cooperation with Russian authorities to help prevent terrorist acts," Clinton said in a written statement. Putin has blamed the recent bomb blasts on Chechen warlords fighting Russian rule in the North Caucasus. On Friday Putin gave no details of his planned security crackdown but it is believed to include sealing Chechnya's administrative borders. The government has already stepped up street patrols in Russian cities, document checks and house-to-house inspections as well as unspecified covert operations by special services. Putin, a former KGB spy, repeated his opposition to declaring a state of emergency in Russia and ruled out any repeat of Moscow's ill-fated 1994 invasion of Chechnya. But he cast doubt over the August 1996 Khasavyurt accord, which halted the ruinous war with the Chechen rebels. Putin told reporters the Chechens had failed to keep their side of that deal, which deferred a decision on Chechnya's status to the end of 2001. The accord was signed by Lebed, then a Kremlin envoy, and Aslan Maskhadov, now president of Chechnya. Yegor Stroyev, speaker of the Federation Council, said Russia was not only contemplating strong-arm methods to combat terrorism in the North Caucasus. "We must also bring economic, political, judicial measures to bear," said Stroyev, flanked by Putin. The Chechen leadership, which has little influence over the warlords, has denied involvement in the bomb attacks. So has Shamil Basayev, head of rebel Moslem fighters battling Russian troops in the province of Dagestan next to Chechnya. The latest bomb blast hit St Petersburg, Russia's second city, late on Thursday, killing two people and injuring four. But police said they did not believe it was linked to the more powerful explosions over the past two weeks in Moscow and the southern towns of Volgodonsk and Buinaksk. Criminal underworld attacks are relatively common in Russia. NTV television said police were holding two Chechen men suspected of involvement in the two Moscow bomb attacks, which killed more than 200 people. RIA news agency said the Russian military was now preparing a major military operation against Chechnya its neighbour. Officials declined to comment. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Yakushkin said Yeltsin was following events closely on Friday from his Gorky-9 residence outside Moscow. "Boris Yeltsin believes all branches of power must show a united front in the struggle," Yakushkin said. But Yeltsin, weakened by poor health, by Russia's economic woes and by Western allegations of corruption in his entourage, has never looked more politically isolated or distrusted. The Federation Council's Stroyev, a long-time Yeltsin loyalist, caused a stir on Thursday with an interview in the New York Times which quoted him as saying the president should quit. In another worrying sign for Yeltsin, some members of the Council drew up a declaration on Friday urging him to step down.