State Duma

State Duma Building. Main Hall.

September 17, 1999. 10 o'clock.
Presided over by the Chairman of the State Duma Gennadiy Seleznyov

Presiding Officer. Dear deputies, good morning! Please, proceed to the hall.
Dear colleagues, please, take your seats.
Turn on the deputy registration mode.
Those without a card, please register at the secretariat.
Show the results.

Registration results (10:02:17)
* Present . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352 people . . . . . 78.2%
* Absent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 people . . . . . 21.8%
* Total deputies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450 people
* Quorum is present

Quorum is present.
Dear colleagues, allow me on your behalf to congratulate Viktor Yakovlevich Medikov and Valentin Georgievich Stepankov on their birthdays. (Applause.)
Dear deputies, you have the agenda for today's work in your hands. I propose to vote for it as a basis.
Who is without a card and would like to vote?
Show the results.

Voting results (10:03:10)
* Voted for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 people . . . . . 60.9%
* Voted against . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 people . . . . . 0.0%
* Abstained . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 people . . . . . 0.0%
* Voted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 people
* Did not vote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 people
* Result: passed

Adopted as a basis.
In connection with today's agenda, with the "government hour", the floor is given to Boris Yuryevich Kuznetsov. Please.

Kuznetsov B.Yu., First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma.
Dear deputies, in the "Government Hour" section of our agenda today, the first item is the question of the activities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense, well, for brevity I will say, on Transnistria. This was introduced by deputy Zhanna Mikhailovna Lozinskaya, and the chamber voted on this issue.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Minister Ivanov personally and in writing (you have this letter, it was distributed today), and yesterday in an oral conversation with me, asked to postpone this issue to a later date. They are now intensively conducting negotiations with the Transnistrian Republic, Smirnov is supposed to arrive and meet with the Chairman of the Government. They very convincingly ask for a postponement and are ready to consider this issue on October 1. Our capabilities coincide with their proposal, and we can postpone this issue to October 1. If we are still going to consider it today, then it should be kept in mind that Minister Ivanov is on a business trip and Vasily Dmitrievich Sredin, State Secretary, Deputy Minister, is ready to come to us to participate in the work. The chamber must now decide: either to postpone this issue of our "government hour" to October 1, or still carry it out today in closed session, but the absence of the Minister of Foreign Affairs is recorded in the documents.
Thank you.

Presiding Officer. Well, it seems to me that a letter also came from the Ministry of Defense. There it is also proposed: at the level of heads of departments.
Dear colleagues, I do not see, unfortunately, Zhanna Mikhailovna Lozinskaya, the author of this document. Please, let's exchange opinions from the factions on how we should proceed with today's issue.
Vladimir Volfovich, please.

Zhirinovsky V.V., head of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia faction.
I think the absence of the initiator of the question speaks best of all that the question is redundant, unnecessary. Leave our ministers alone today. Do you see what is happening in the country?! Remember, Gennadiy Ni-