MOSCOW () -- President Boris Yeltsin has accepted the resignation of his human rights commissioner, an outspoken critic of the Kremlin's brutal war against Chechen separatists.


Sergei Kovalyov had offered his resignation last week, citing the president's "final recoil from the policy of democratic reforms."


"I can no longer work with a president whom I consider neither a supporter of democracy nor the guardian of the rights and freedoms of the citizens of my country," Kovalyov wrote to Yeltsin.


Itar-Tass and Interfax both reported that Yeltsin on Saturday accepted his resignation without comment.