Russia Pulls Troops From Chechnya

President Boris Yeltsin ordered the withdrawal of the final two Russian brigades from Chechnya on Saturday, in a final retreat from his disastrous 20-month attempt to quell Chechen separatists by force.

“This decree is a new confirmation of the president’s view that there is no military way of solving the Chechen problem,” said Yeltsin’s spokesman, Sergei Yastrzhembsky.

Under an August peace accord between Russian leaders and Chechen separatists, Russia was to pull all its troops out of Chechnya by the end of the year. Until Saturday, however, Russia had insisted that the 101st Brigade and the 205th Motorized Brigade remain in Chechnya, where they had been based even before Yeltsin started his offensive against Chechen rebels in 1994.

Separatist leaders had demanded that the brigades be withdrawn, saying their presence would obstruct planned Jan. 27 parliamentary and presidential elections in Chechnya.

Chechen leaders greeted Yeltsin’s order withdrawing the brigades with “deep satisfaction,” Aslan Maskhadov, the head of Chechnya’s coalition government, was quoted as saying by ITAR-Tass news agency.

Yeltsin’s decree cleared the way for a new agreement signed Saturday by Maskhadov and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin.

The accord spells out the basic principles of relations between Moscow and the separatist republic until its new president and parliament are elected.

The pact also says the sides will conclude agreements later on “special economic relations.”

A key provision says accords on the production, refining and transporting of oil - a matter of vital interest to Russia - will be finished by Dec. 1, and the Chechen side will guarantee the safety of pipelines and oil installations.

Oil-rich Chechnya was a major refining center and lies along the route of a strategic pipeline carrying Caspian Sea oil to the Black Sea. Many analysts maintain that Yeltsin’s war against the Chechen rebels had as much to do with oil as with the independence drive of the predominantly Islamic republic.

Under the new agreement, both sides guarantee free movement of people and goods through Chechnya and pledge to restore all railroad and car traffic by Dec. 1.