Russian Legislature Dodges Calls for No-Confidence Vote : Government: Instead, lawmakers urge reworking of radical market reforms.

Russia’s legislature on Friday sidestepped calls by hard-line deputies for a no-confidence vote in the government and instead formally urged ministers to rework their radical market reforms.

Deputies adopted a vaguely worded resolution calling on the Cabinet of acting Prime Minister Yegor T. Gaidar to work with the Supreme Soviet’s top economic team to amend the latest version of reforms aimed at introducing a market economy.

They turned down calls for a no-confidence vote in the Cabinet but also refused to include an approval of Gaidar’s program in their resolution.

Gaidar, who strongly defended his reforms Thursday, can effectively ignore the legislative resolution by either ditching it entirely or by taking on board a few minor points suggested by the legislature’s experts.

Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev hinted that President Boris N. Yeltsin’s team was not ready to compromise on the key planks of economic and political reforms.

“If and when it came to talks about the surrender of positions there would be another president and another foreign minister,” he told Commonwealth television Friday.

The legislature also set the scene for a clash next week over the composition of the Cabinet by asking Yeltsin to present a candidate for prime minister.

Yeltsin is expected to ask the Congress of People’s Deputies, the country’s conservative Parliament, to confirm Gaidar in the post when it opens next week.

Yeltsin’s hard-line Communist and nationalist foes in the unwieldy 1,068-member Congress want to unseat the Cabinet and are sure to propose a no-confidence vote during the debate on the prime minister’s appointment.

On Thursday Gaidar scotched widespread expectations he had done a deal with influential center-right opponents to dilute the reforms by telling deputies that the basic thrust of the program would remain unchanged.

Last month, Parliament condemned the government for mishandling the reform program, which conservatives say is leading the country to beggary.