Boris Yeltsin's planned meeting with European Union leaders next month is shaping up as a key test of government assertions that the Russian president's health is improving and he can stay in office.
Presidential aides say Yeltsin will do his best to attend the Feb. 4 meeting, but Russian newspapers noted Thursday that if he doesn't, it will weaken the government position."This time, canceling the visit might turn the sympathetic international opinion regarding the Russian president's capabilities into something really ominous," the Segodnya newspaper said in an editorial Thursday.
Yeltsin has been sidelined since last summer with heart trouble and now pneumonia, raising growing doubts about his ability to govern. Some opposition lawmakers have called for Yeltsin's removal, but the administration has insisted the president is fit enough to stay in office.
Doctors said Wednesday that Yeltsin will stay in the hospital at least until next week to avoid possible heart problems and other complications of pneumonia.
A senior Kremlin official said Yeltsin wants to attend the meeting with EU leaders in The Hague, Netherlands, and added it will be a sign of how well his recovery is going.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, also said Yeltsin will not return to work in the Kremlin until Jan. 28 at the earliest.
The 65-year-old president is expected to stay at his country home near Moscow after being released from the hospital.
Yeltsin has been largely sidelined - first with heart problems and now with pneumonia - since winning re-election in July.
His hard-line foes in parliament have moved to oust the president on grounds of poor health, but they were told by their own legal adviser Wednesday they had no constitutional right to do so.
Parliament leaders appeared to bury the motion Thursday, refusing to even debate it.
"We must heed our legal section's advice and take the issue off the agenda," said Duma speaker Gennady Seleznyov, a Communist.
The chief Kremlin doctor, Sergei Mironov, dismissed suggestions that the president would not be able to perform his full duties. According to Mironov, Yeltsin works for 40 minutes to two hours a day.