Anatoly Lukyanov announced his resignation Monday as chairman of the national Supreme Soviet legislature but denied accusations he was a driving force behind last week's foiled coup.
"From the beginning, when I saw the plotters, I told them I had no association with them and I would not," Lukyanov told reporters before the opening of a stormy legislative session."It's useless to set me up as if I were against the president," he said. Working with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev "is part of my life."
The two had been Communist Party cronies and friends since their days as fellow law students in the 1950s, and Gorbachev catapulted him into high-ranking administrative and advisory posts in the 1980s.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin has accused Lukyanov of being a key planner of the coup. The Tass state news agency reported that Lukyanov was questioned Saturday night by Russia's chief prosecutor, Valentin Stepankov.
Lukyanov, 61, was not a member of the eight-man emergency committee that tried to seize power last week. But he was widely criticized for refusing to convene the legislature before Monday and for signing a statement criticizing the new Union Treaty that intended to hold the country together by giving the republics greater control over their economies and resources.
Lukyanov said Monday it would have been impossible to recall lawmakers from throughout the Soviet Union so soon.
He also said his statement condemning the Union Treaty, released by Tass within hours of the Aug. 19 coup attempt, was actually written three days earlier. He said the date was changed to make it look as though he were siding with the coup leaders.