Russian President Boris Yeltsin dismissed the entire Russian government on Monday, the Russian news agency Interfax reported, quoting the presidential press service.

The announcement came after Yeltsin held a meeting with Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin at the Kremlin on Monday morning.

ITAR-TASS news agency reported that Chernomyrdin had resigned and that Yeltsin would be taking over as acting head of government.

Interfax then reported that First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoliy Chubays had been dismissed "in connection with his transfer to other work" .

Soon after, Russian NTV reported that Yeltsin had signed a decree on the resignation of the entire government, to take immediate effect.

However, First Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov was quoted by Interfax as saying that he was continuing to fulfil his function and that he did not rule out that he could be offered a post in the new government.

"The president has decided to dismiss the government and there's nothing I can add to that," Nemtsov said.

"What happens next? There'll be a new government and it's up to the president to decide who's in it," he added.

Boris Berezovskiy, the leading businessman and former deputy secretary of the Russian Security Council, welcomed President Boris Yeltsin's decision to dismiss the government on Monday, saying that the new government should "repent" publicly for the mistakes of the old, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.

Yeltsin had taken a "well-thought-out and long-considered decision" which was "absolutely correct", he said.

The president should now create a "capable and powerful government that will pursue reforms in the most decisive way".

"The only way for the authorities to ensure continuity of this policy is to show the necessary willpower," he added.

"There has to be a public repentance for the mistakes that were inevitable during the reforms in this country."

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.
 

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