By the end of the Kremlin meeting, Putin had committed himself to the amnesty that Fridman and Potanin had called for.

One major point of agreement after the two days of Kremlin meetings, Mr. Gorbachev said, was the need for a period of stabilization before abolishing central controls.

Mr. Yeltsin delivered a riposte against the bankers during a closed-door Kremlin meeting last week with six of nation's top bankers.

Secretary of State James A. Baker 3d, reached tonight in Moscow, said that from what he had heard of the Kremlin meeting, "it would be a very encouraging step."

If too many of these powerful men were known to be attending a Kremlin meeting, then something vital had to be up.

Officials of the central Government and the local party were quoted in news accounts as describing the Kremlin meeting on Thursday as lengthy and constructive.

The special Kremlin meeting was considered an attempt to at least defer, if not cancel, the vote for a separatist party.

The tone of the Kremlin meeting indicated that the leaders of the two nations want to cooperate on the resumption of more productive international activities.

After years of the authorities doing little or nothing to protect journalists' safety, the Kremlin meeting was a welcome surprise, and the president was "sincerely concerned", Yaroshevsky said.

They spent much of a Kremlin meeting blaming each other for being naive, sluggish and so on.