Russian parliamentarians pleased with meeting Russian President

Leaders of Duma factions and associations are pleased with the results of their meeting with the Russian president in the Kremlin.

As State Duma speaker Gennady Seleznyov said, the meeting was in effect an informal exchange of views. He also noted that the government itself sets dates for submitting bills and itself violates them.

Unity faction leader Vladimir Pekhtin said, for his part, that the questions discussed at the meeting dealt with power generation. Besides, deputies expressed, according to Pekhtin, their own opinion on domestic Russian and international issues. Pekhtin expressed hope that the president would be able to form his own view from these comments.

Yabloko faction leader Grigory Yavlinsky said that the latest events in the North Caucasus were discussed during the conversation. According to him, a consensus was arrived at that it is now necessary to draw up plans for the autumn to prevent tensions building up in the region, and also to take into account the approaching winter. In addition, according to Yavlinsky, while discussing small business problems, Vladimir Putin agreed that the bills adopted were not enough to develop this segment of the economy.

According to Yavlinsky, the need was stressed to establish a single tax on small businesses. Yavlinsky pointed out that the president and the leaders of Duma factions and associations had agreed to examine the question in detail.

In addition, deputies said that relations with Belarus also came up for discussion. In their view, it is necessary to begin in earnest building up a union state and above all to identify the underlying principle -- as a single state or like the European Union.