Yeltsin Sees Long Way to Go as Special Assembly OKs Draft Constitution : Russia: He stresses territorial integrity. Push for a new charter sparks wrangling among republics, regions.

Boris N. Yeltsin’s new draft constitution cleared a major hurdle when a special assembly approved it Monday, but the Russian president acknowledged that the charter still has a long, tough way to go before it can come into force.

“New Russia needs a new constitution,” Yeltsin, in a no-nonsense mood, told about 600 members of the assembly gathered in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses. “We convened to work out a new draft and we worked it out. We have reached agreement because we wanted the truth to prevail.”

He then declared an end to discussions and rammed through approval of the draft, which includes guarantees of Western-style human rights and of private property, on a 433-62 vote. There were 63 abstentions.

But the victory, although clear, was also only “the beginning of a long road,” Yeltsin said.

The push to work out the new federal law has unleashed explosive wrangling among Russia’s 90 regions and republics. Four regions have declared their intent to raise their status to that of republics in recent days, and top politicians have once again begun to worry aloud that Russia will fall apart.

“We all carry responsibility for the (territorial) integrity of Russia,” Yeltsin warned at the assembly. “That is what no one must ever risk.”

It is the arguments among the republics--which have enjoyed lower taxes, plumper subsidies and more autonomy--and the lowlier regions that has become the main sticking point for the new constitution’s drafters.

The constitution is now expected to be printed for public discussion and to go for comment to local parliaments of the regions and republics--where it is likely to get bogged down in complaints and heightened demands.

“Very few republics will approve it,” predicted Yegor Laryonov, a lawmaker from the Siberian republic of Sakha.

Yeltsin, however, appeared steeled for the next stage of the battle and as deeply convinced as ever that only a new constitution can give Russia the stability that it needs to pursue economic reform.

“How many conflicts could have been avoided if we’d had clear and established rules of transition from the former system to a new one?” he said. “But as it happened, we were changing the rules as we went along.”

Yeltsin’s press secretary, Vyacheslav Kostikov, told reporters that now that the basic text of the new constitution is more or less worked out, “ahead lies a no less difficult, and possibly a politically tougher, stage--the stage of ratifying the constitution.”

Neither the special assembly nor the Congress of People’s Deputies (Parliament) has made a decision yet on how the new constitution should become law. Yeltsin proposed that the assembly convene again in August to discuss possible procedures and amendments.

Whatever the assembly decides, however, many legal experts believe that only the conservative Congress of People’s Deputies, which is opposed to Yeltsin, can pass the constitution. Its chairman, Ruslan I. Khasbulatov, and some deputies have boycotted the assembly.

The draft constitution that the assembly approved Monday makes all 90 territorial chunks of Russia technically equal but lets the 21 republics establish their own citizenship within Russia, declare a second official language and enjoy more control over their own resources and economy.

The draft retains one of its most controversial features: that the Russian president has the power under certain circumstances to dissolve Parliament, a move that must then be followed by new elections.