The Russian President, Mr Boris Yeltsin, yesterday abruptly cut short by a day his visit to Kazakhstan on doctors' orders to treat bronchitis, the Kremlin said.
"He fell ill at the end of the week in Moscow. He insisted that the visit take place," a spokesman, Mr Dmitry Yakushkin, said in the Kazakh commercial capital Almaty. "Boris Nikolayevich was against cutting it short but the doctors said it would be better to return to Moscow.
"When you have a cold, you need to lie in bed," he said.
Earlier in the day while in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, Mr Yeltsin (67) suffered a prolonged bout of coughing while speaking at a signing ceremony with Uzbek President, Mr Islam Karimov.
Interfax news agency quoted Dr Sergei Mironov as saying Mr Yeltsin had bronchitis and was being treated with antibiotics. He also said the president had a slight fever. Mr Yeltsin had been due to return to Moscow this afternoon, but a spokesman for Kazakh President, Mr Nursultan Nazarbayev, said he would head back at 10 p.m. last night (local time). The trip to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan was Mr Yeltsin's first foreign journey in six months and again raised questions about his ability to rule in a time of crisis.
On Sunday, it looked as though Mr Yeltsin would tumble during a welcoming ceremony at the presidential mansion in Tashkent. Mr Karimov quickly took Mr Yeltsin's elbow to help him return inside as the ceremony was cut short.
Mr Yeltsin's burly bodyguard took no chances yesterday and stood next to the president at the airport in Almaty, when he walked steadily with Mr Nazarbayev.
Mr Yeltsin, who looked pale, and Mr Nazabayev met for just 40 minutes before emerging for a 15minute ceremony to sign documents including a decade-long economic co-operation deal and a border demarcation agreement.
Mr Yeltsin took about 25 seconds each time he signed the bilateral agreements and was clearly concentrating intensely in the process.
In a departure from local custom, the two leaders made their speeches while sitting down rather than standing. Afterwards Mr Yeltsin left the room with his left arm over the Kazakh leader and with Mr Nazarbayev holding him around the waist.
Mr Yakushkin said Mr Yeltsin had decided reluctantly to cut short the visit during the Monday flight from Tashkent to Almaty.
In Tashkent yesterday morning, Mr Yeltsin, who struggled to smile, told reporters he felt "okay" but made no further comment.
The plan to return home early was both an embarrassment to the Russian leader at home and in diplomacy, as he had already twice put off travels to Russia's oil-rich southern neighbour Kazakhstan in recent months.
Russia and Uzbekistan, a Muslim country of 24 million people in Central Asia that borders on Afghanistan, are concerned about the possible influence of the purist Taliban militia and an influx of cheap arms and narcotics.
"We intend to use our existing political arsenal more efficiently to stabilise the situation on the southern borders of the CIS," Mr Yeltsin said in a statement, referring to a Russian-Uzbek-Tajik declaration on multilateral relations.
The Tajik President, Mr Imomali Rakhmonov, had signed the document earlier.
Mr Yeltsin said the document covered issues ranging from economic to military co-operation and said that other "interested states" might join it.
Earlier this year Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan formed a troika to fight Islamist fundamentalism together.
Meanwhile, in Moscow, Russia's opposition Communist Party yesterday urged workers to stage new nationwide protests if the government failed to fulfil their demands.
The Communist leader, Mr Gennady Zyuganov, said the protests should take place on November 7th, the anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution which put Communists in power until the collapse of the Soviet system in 1991.
The protests would be exactly one month after tens of thousands of people took to the streets across Russia on October 7th to protest against unpaid wages and to demand the resignation of Mr Yeltsin.