Security Officials Offer Resignations

Russia’s top security officials offered to resign Thursday in an attempt to offer a face-saving way out of the government’s latest crisis with parliament.

Parliament has demanded the ouster of defense Minister Pavel Grachev, Interior Minister Viktor Yerin, Federal Security Service chief Sergei Stepashin and Deputy Prime Minister Nikolai Yegorov as the price for the government’s botched handling of a recent hostage crisis.

“Considering the harsh consequences of the tragedy … the leaders of security structures asked that their resignations be accepted,” President Boris Yeltsin’s press service said in a statement Thursday.

Yeltsin will decide whether to accept the resignations on a caseby-case basis, the statement said. Parliament speaker Ivan Rybkin said Yeltsin will announce his decision by July 10.