KAVKAZ-CENTER: THE KHASBULATOV PLAN.

On October 4, a separatist website, Kavkaz-Center, which is not affiliated with Aslan Maskhadov and his entourage, wrote that there were recent reports that Ruslan Khasbulatov is to be appointed head of Chechnya’s pro-Moscow administration. Khasbulatov, the website wrote, “is reported to have insisted that the appointment should ostensibly be made by popular request. He wants to be the Kremlin’s only ‘man’ in Chechnya and to have a full mandate for talks with rebel president Aslan Maskhadov to organize the latter’s future ‘removal from the political scene.'” Khasbulatov’s plan, the website observed, was for there to be “restricted international autonomy [for Chechnya] within the framework of Russian laws.” The elected State Duma representative from Chechnya, retired MVD General Aslambek Aslakhanov, is to be Khasbulatov’s “power-wielding” assistant, in control of all Russian forces on Chechen soil. The website clearly did not approve of Khasbulatov’s alleged plan (Translation by BBC Monitoring of Kavkaz-Tsentr news agency website, October 4).