'Loyal moderate' replaces General

Moscow (Reuter) - President Boris Yeltsin named a loyal moderate, Ivan Rybkin, yesterday to replace the controversial Alexander Lebed as his security adviser.

Mr Rybkin, former speaker of the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, becomes secretary of Mr Yeltsin's powerful Security Council and his personal envoy to the breakaway republic of Chechnya.

In a short meeting at the Barvikha sanatorium outside Moscow, where the 65-year-old president is preparing for heart surgery, filmed by Yeltsin's press service, Mr Yeltsin told Mr Rybkin: "I am sure you will succeed. Good luck."

The Kremlin press service said Mr Yeltsin urged his new aide to cooperate closely with all branches of power in Russia.

In his four months in office, General Lebed antagonised much of the Russian establishment, but his public popularity was boosted by an August peace deal with Chechen separatists, ending 20 months of war in which tens of thousands have died.

The Chechens have warned that General Lebed's dismissal could lead to a deterioration of the situation there. There was no immediate reaction from them over Mr Rybkin's appointment.

Mr Rybkin, who is 50 today,is unlikely to stir trouble in the Kremlin or to try to take advantage of Mr Yeltsin's illness. A communist, he was elected to the Duma in 1993 as a member of the conservative Agrarian Party, but broke with the party after becoming parliamentary speaker and a Yeltsin supporter. As speaker, he steered the parliament away from any clashes with the president, but was ousted from the job last year after the communists and their allies voted against him.