Crisis Eases as Russian Miners Free Railways

Siberia, said protesters had removed their last two pickets on the line, the main artery for much of the country`s freight. The decision was taken after marathon negotiations between union leaders and government officials headed by Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Sysuyev. Regional governor Aman Tuleyev told the miners he would guarantee the government fulfilled its obligations. Tuleyev agreed with the miners, who are demanding the payment of long overdue wages, to review the situation on July 1 and resume the blockade if they were not satisfied. A five-day blockade on another key line, the north Caucasus railway, was lifted on Saturday evening, leaving just one small route still shut off, Interfax said, quoting the deputy head of the Russian Coalminers` Union Ivan Mokhnachuk. Susuyev, sent to Siberia to try to end the blockade, which President Boris Yeltsin said was costing millions of dollars, said on Saturday Moscow had no intention of fighting the miners. Tuleyev said the miners not only wanted the government to pay wages owed to them but also, in places where uneconomic pits are due to close, to be given assurance of future jobs. Prime Minister Sergei Kireynko, appointed last month to head a reshuffled cabinet charged with reinvigorating market reforms, said the miners were not to blame for problems in the Soviet-era coal industry. But Kiriyenko`s government faces an uphill struggle to find the cash to meet the miners` demands. Government borrowing costs soared last week when the central bank was forced to hike interest rates by two thirds to 50 percent to protect the rouble from investor nervousness due to Asian and domestic economic worries. The government is counting on getting $670 million from the International Monetary Fund as part of a $9.2 billion lending programme, but an IMF mission gave no indication of whether the funds would be forthcoming when it left Moscow on Saturday.