Acting Russian PM to Meet Chernomyrdin

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's Acting Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko will on Tuesday meet ex-premier Viktor Chernomyrdin, President Boris Yeltsin's chief of staff and the two parliamentary speakers, a government spokesman said. Igor Shabdurasulov told a news briefing that all government members, except sacked interior minister Anatoly Kulikov and former first deputy prime minister Anatoly Chubais, were still working. Yeltsin sacked the entire cabinet on Monday and appointed former fuel and energy minister Kiriyenko as a first deputy prime minister and acting prime minister. He told the government to continue working until the new cabinet is formed. Yeltsin relieved Kulikov and Chubais of their duties by separate decrees. "It would be silly to say that everything is unchanged in the government. It is not so," Shabdurasulov said. "But the government and its apparatus keep working because their responsibility is too great, because the economic and political situation in the country does not allow them to relax." He also said the agenda of a government meeting planned for Thursday would be unchanged. Shabdurasulov told reporters Chernomyrdin was helping Kiriyenko "to get into the premier's routine." "From today Kiriyenko is signing all the government's documents," he said. He did not say what Kiriyenko would discuss with Valentin Yumashev, Yeltsin's chief of staff. Chernomyrdin would meet government officials later on Tuesday to "evaluate five years of joint work", Shabdurasulov said. Yeltsin told Chernomyrdin to start preparing for presidential polls in 2000. It was not clear whether Yeltsin meant preparations as a candidate.