Yeltsin sees his main task as creation of `multi-polar' world free of US hegemony

President Boris Yeltsin has called for a world in which the United States is not the dominant power. At the presentation of credentials of 12 ambassadors, including those of the new Irish Ambassador, Mr David Donoghue, Mr Yeltsin said his main task was to create a "multi-polar" world.

"The development of international relations on a democratic basis, the strengthening of global interdependency and security and an increase in the United Nations' role," were, he said, also among Russia's foreign policy priorities.

On the threshold of the new millennium, the international community is facing a strategic choice for its future, he continued. The main task was to set up a multi-polar world. That system "should be based on the principles and norms of international law and mutual concern in the interests of all the globe's states".

Russia was coming up with serious initiatives on how to build a multi-polar world, he said, adding that he hoped the countries represented at the ceremony would contribute to "making the new system of a multi-polar world and developing a great Russia".

Moscow sees a strengthened United Nations as a buffer against US world dominance. NATO, in particular, is regarded by Russia as dominated by Washington and it wants to see other international organisations take over many of the roles NATO has adopted following the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact.

Mr Donoghue, who replaces Mr Ronan Murphy as ambassador in Moscow, was posted to the Holy See, Bonn, London and New York before serving as Irish joint-secretary at the Anglo-Irish secretariat in Maryfield, Belfast, with the rank of ambassador.

Mr Murphy is now attached to the cabinet of the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson.

Agencies add:

Russian forces yesterday continued their war of attrition against Islamic rebels holding out in the mountains of Dagestan. "The area surrounding the rebel strongholds is largely sealed off and we will now rely on air power and artillery to wear them down before venturing any new attacks," an Interior Ministry spokesman in the regional capital of Makhachkala said.

"On our side three people have died and 31 have been wounded since Sunday," he said, noting the rebels were using machine guns, mortars and anti-aircraft guns against the federal forces.

"How they got all these weapons up there remains to be investigated," he said.

Itar-Tass news agency yesterday quoted Dagestani police officials as saying five troops were killed on Monday alone.

The rebels set up breakaway settlements in the villages of Karamakhi and Chabanmakhi in central Dagestan about a year ago.

They fortified positions on three hills overlooking the area as Moscow-backed authorities in Makhachkala balked at restoring order by force for fear such action could break a fragile balance of power in the multi-ethnic republic.

After defeating separatist rebels from neighbouring Chechnya, who raided another area in Dagestan, Moscow decided last month to wipe out all strongholds of Islamic opposition in the province.

On Sunday, troops entered the two villages deserted by the rebels, who moved to positions on the surrounding bush-covered hills. The efforts to dislodge them have so far failed.

"We hope that the operation will not last longer than a couple of days, but we do not rule anything out," the spokesman said. "Our aim is a victory with minimal losses."

In a further indication of regional instability, members of the Cherkess minority declared autonomy from other ethnic groups in the southern republic of Karacheyevo-Cherkessia yesterday.