Moscow, Tuesday,
A POLITICAL storm erupted in Russia today with President Boris Yeltsin saying parliament should be ``held to answer'' for denouncing the break-up of the Soviet Union and his communist rival accusing him of hysteria.
Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze, backing Yeltsin, called for an emergency summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States to discuss Friday's vote in the State Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament.
The upper house, the Federation Council, which groups regional leaders, voted overwhelmingly to urge the Duma to reconsider its resolution, saying it would damage relations with Russia's neighbours.
US Secretary of State Warren Christopher, visiting Ukraine, entered the row when he denounced the Duma move as irresponsible. He said the international community would oppose any attempt to reconstitute the Soviet Union.
The vote by the Duma, where communists hold more than one-third of the 450 seats, declared void the December 1991 ratification of the Belovezh agreement by the former Russian parliament.
The agreement, signed by Yeltsin and the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus, pronounced the Soviet Union dead and replaced it with the CIS, later joined by all former Soviet republics except Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
Although the vote has no legal force, the communist-initiated move has riled the leaders of the 11 other CIS member states and embarrassed Yeltsin as he prepares to host Western leaders including Christopher and Nato Secretary-General Javier Solana.
``This is very serious and the Duma must be held to answer for its irresponsible decision,'' Yeltsin said after meeting Shevardnadze. He did not say what he meant but he called the resolution ``harmful and not intelligent''.
Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, who is far ahead of Yeltsin in most opinion polls for the June 16 presidential election, derided Yeltsin's alarm.
``This hysteria shows weakness. Strong people never have bouts of hysteria, especially on television,'' he said.
He reiterated that the communists wanted a form of the union to be restored only through peaceful means and said the CIS leaders had nothing to fear following the Duma resolution.
Zyuganov said the idea of postponing the election was ``science fiction'' from the point of view of the constitution, but said he could not exclude Yeltsin resorting to force to do so. He drew a parallel with events in 1993 when Yeltsin called in tanks to batter rebel MPs into surrender.
Yeltsin dismissed similar allegations yesterday by saying: ``There is no need for them to get scared. Zyuganov will not need an armoured personnel carrier to go to work.''
Former vice-president Alexander Rutskoi, who has announced his backing for Zyuganov's presidential bid, bluntly spoke up in favour of a re-created Soviet Union.
However all CIS leaders have condemned the Duma vote.-Reuter.
Leader comment........................16
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