Pro-Russian Chechen administration chief Mr Akhmad Kadyrov said yesterday he had dismissed the republic's Kremlin-appointed Prime Minister, Mr Mikhail Babich, with whom he had a blazing public row last month.
Mr Babich, who is currently on holiday, "will not return to Grozny", Mr Kadyrov told the ITAR-TASS news agency, saying that a decision had already been taken on appointing a successor.
"My decision that we need a different prime minister has been welcomed by all members of the (Chechen) cabinet," Mr Kadyrov said, noting that Mr Babich had not tendered his resignation.
On January 13th, Mr Babich, named Chechen prime minister only last November, lambasted Mr Kadyrov for appointing a new finance minister "in violation of (Russian) presidential decrees" in what observers said was a struggle for influence over the republic's finances.
The appointment of Mr Babich, previously a deputy governor in the Ivanovo region near Moscow, was seen as a bid by the Kremlin to install a counterweight to the headstrong Mr Kadyrov.
Mr Babich accused Mr Kadyrov of failing to consult him on the ministerial change, and Mr Kadyrov responded by accusing him of "provocation". The row lasted for several days until the Kremlin's top adviser on Chechnya, Mr Sergei Yastrzhembsky, intervened.
The open dispute between Chechnya's top two officials was particularly damaging in that it came at the start of a referendum campaign in which the war-torn republic's population is to decide on a new constitution. - (AFP)