Kiriyenko Vows to Aid Chechnya

NAZRAN, Russia —  Prime Minister Sergei V. Kiriyenko offered Saturday to make good on promises of economic aid to devastated rebel Chechnya, prompting the region’s leader to say after a meeting that he had “new hope.”

After two hours of talks, Kiriyenko said: “We need stability and peace in Chechnya and the whole North Caucasus. . . . We need to settle Chechnya’s economic problems.

“We must also provide work for the citizens of Chechnya, considering there was a war and the whole economy was ruined,” he told a news conference, saying poverty was the driving force behind the violent anarchy gripping much of Chechnya and affecting its neighbors.

Chechnya President Aslan Maskhadov--a former Soviet artillery colonel who led the guerrilla army that forced out Russian troops in 1996 after 21 months of carnage--has complained bitterly that Chechnya has seen little of the money promised under a peace treaty he signed in the Kremlin a year ago with President Boris N. Yeltsin.

“After today’s meeting we have new hope that the agreements will, if only in part, be put into practice,” Maskhadov said.

Yeltsin met Kiriyenko immediately after his return from Nazran to discuss the results of the talks, the Kremlin press service said.