Former Russian PMs praise Yeltsin's contribution

Moscow, Apr 24: Former Prime Ministers of Russia today paid rich tributes to Boris Yeltsin, the first democratically elected President of a sovereign Russia.

President Putin along with former Prime Ministers Viktor Chernomyrdin, Yegor Gaidar and Sergei Stepashin expressed their condolence over the death of Yeltsin.

''Russia's first President Boris Yeltsin is a whole era in the history of Russia,'' Viktor Chernomyrdin, who was Prime Minister in the Yeltsin government for about six years, said.

''Time has to pass for us to assess what he has done for Russia and the whole world,'' he said in a statement in Kiev, where he is serving as Russian Ambassador to Ukraine.

''He was the one who paved the new path for Russia. The democratic and economic foundation he laid is irreversible, and there will be no deviations from it. And the credit for this goes to the First President,'' Mr Chernomyrdin said, adding that he had a telephone conversation with Yeltsin several days ago.

''Being the absolute master of Russia, he used it not in order to re-establish a regime similar to autocracy, but in order to give us hope that has yet to be justified and fought for, hope that we can have a democratic regime,'' Mr Gaidar, the acting Prime Minister and architect of market reform under Yeltsin, said appearing at the Russian NTV television station.

''When the North Caucasus was on fire, this man assumed responsibility personally. I can say this for sure. We can speak of mistakes, but it is obvious that he was not a coward and he did not shift his personal responsibility to others,'' Mr Stepashin, a former Prime Minister, said.

UNI