RUSSIA STRENGTHENS TIES WITH BELARUS.

Byline: Associated Press 

Russia and Belarus announced Saturday that they are linking their governments and economies in a new union, but Russia insisted that both countries will remain sovereign states.

"Russia and Belarus are going to sign the treaty on deeper integration, but this does not mean that any new state is in the making," said Sergei Medvedev, President Boris Yeltsin's press secretary.

The pact between Russia and its smaller neighbor was announced Saturday by Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko. The agreement will be signed April 2, Lukashenko said after meeting with Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin.

Chernomyrdin said the two countries will remain sovereign. Lukashenko said the new union would be governed by a council made up of the two countries' presidents, prime ministers and parliament leaders.

The name of the new entity has not been determined, but it might be called a union, a commonwealth or some other name, Chernomyrdin said. "I am for 'union' - I like this word," he told reporters.

Belarus, a nation of 10 million people between Russia and Poland, became independent when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, but has since been pushing to move back into Moscow's orbit.

Lukashenko was elected in 1994 on promises of bringing back Soviet-era stability. But the country is struggling economically, having refused to undertake market reforms. Belarus also has borne the brunt of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which occurred just over its border in Ukraine.

Draft plans of the treaty call for writing a joint constitution and a common budget.

Medvedev said budget integration referred to the funding of common projects, such as mitigating the effects of the Chernobyl disaster. "No pooling of the two states' budgets is planned," he said.

Yeltsin, who seeks re-election in June, has trumpeted gradual moves toward closer integration among some former Soviet republics under the auspices of the Commonwealth of Independent States.