Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin said over the weekend that he would not be discouraged if neighboring Belarus declined to enter a planned monetary union with Moscow.


Chernomyrdin told Interfax that even before last weekend's presidential elections in Belarus it was clear the former Soviet republic was not in a position to join Russia in using the ruble.


"If that is what they want, we are ready. Even before the election it had become clear Belarus would not be able to join Russia," he was quoted as saying.


Having different currencies need not prevent the neighbors creating joint companies and cooperating, the premier said. A new system of customs quotas, licenses and tariffs was needed.


"In short, we have seriously to look again at the whole complex of questions linked with working out economic cooperation between the two states," Chernomyrdin said.


Leaders of the two countries had agreed to complete the monetary union by August but central bankers on both sides say the plan is nearly impossible.


Belarus president-elect Alexander Lukashenko pledged during his campaign to move ahead decisively with the plan but some of his recent remarks have indicated a more cautious approach.


Lukashenko told Russian television on Saturday he had never said he opposed the principle of monetary union but that it should be seen in the context of wider cooperation between Russia and Belarus. "I do not understand why we are always talking about this document on the unification of the monetary systems. Let's look at our relations more widely," he said.


He said he would discuss a major bilateral document when he met President Boris Yeltsin on Aug. 2.