President Boris Yeltsin's summit with the leaders of France and Germany next week will be moved to Moscow from the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, the Kremlin said yesterday.
Interfax news agency quoted the Kremlin spokesman, Mr Sergei Yastrzhembsky, as saying doctors had recommended that Mr Yeltsin (67) avoid long flights after a respiratory illness. The president is still recovering from the respiratory infection and would have had a flight of about two hours to Yekaterinburg.
"It has been mutually agreed by all sides that the meeting between Russian President Boris Yeltsin, Chancellor Helmut Kohl and President Jacques Chirac will take place on the planned dates of March 25th-26th in Moscow," the press service said.
The summit is intended to be the first in a series of regular meetings among the three leaders. Discussions are expected to focus on the crises in Iraq and Kosovo, as well as on relations between Russia, France and Germany.
Mr Yeltsin went to his Kremlin office yesterday for the first time in more than a week. He was there for about three hours before returning to the state residence outside Moscow where he has been recovering.
Russia's lower house of parliament appealed to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) yesterday to urge Latvia to ensure equal rights for all its citizens.
The State Duma, which is dominated by communists and nationalists, unanimously supported a resolution which also criticised Riga for allowing veterans of Latvia's Waffen-SS legion to stage an anniversary parade earlier this week.