MOSCOW, Sep 16, 2000 -- (Reuters) Russia's Itar-Tass news agency said on Saturday the United States had refused a Russian request to examine two of its submarines that were in the Barents Sea when the nuclear-powered Kursk sank last month.

In a dispatch from Washington, Tass quoted a Pentagon spokesman as saying that U.S. Defence Secretary William Cohen had turned down the request from his Russian opposite number Igor Sergeyev.

"William Cohen already gave Marshal Sergeyev a reply in which he explained that he did not feel it was necessary or appropriate to allow such an inspection to take place," Tass quoted the spokesman as saying.

No one was available at Russia's Defence Ministry to comment on the report or confirm that such a request had been made.

Russian investigations into two explosions which preceded the sinking of the Kursk during maneuvers in the Barents Sea have suggested a number of possible scenarios.

These include collision with another submarine or a World War Two mine, an explosion on board or the impact from a missile fired from another vessel. The United States and Britain have ruled out collisions with their vessels in the area at the time.

The Russian cabinet minister heading the government's inquiry, Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, defended official handling of the disaster in parliament on Friday.

He said errors in providing information during rescue efforts was not deliberate, but statements made "in the heat of the moment without enough analysis".

The commander of Russia's Northern Fleet told Russian reporters in the northern port of Murmansk on Saturday that the navy had told no lies in dealing with the sinking.

"Not a single lie was told by the navy and top officers during the active phase of rescue efforts," Tass quoted Admiral Vyacheslav Popov as saying.

Popov said hypotheses had been raised which later proved false. But everything had been done to help save the 118 seamen.

The navy initially said rescuers were in contact with the crew and that tapping was heard from the vessel. But officials now say nearly all the crew died in the immediate aftermath of the accident and there was never any contact with them.

FLEET COMMANDER SAYS NAVY HOPED UNTIL THE LAST

"As a submarine specialist I knew that no one could have been alive even on the day following such a disaster," Tass quoted Popov as saying. "But we wanted to believe that someone might have survived. And we kept on with the (rescue) work."

A Russian mini-sub is to travel to the site of the accident next week and work to recover the bodies of the seamen is to start next month. A debate has been launched on whether to raise the submarine itself next year.

Private NTV television showed the wife of the submarine's commander, Irina Lyachina, arriving in the southern Russian city of Kursk, after which the vessel was named, to discuss offers by local authorities to re-house relatives of the dead.

Russian media drew attention after the disaster to the living conditions of impoverished families of submarine crews in a closed town near Murmansk.

"First, we have to pay decent salaries instead of the miserable ones they get now," Kursk regional governor and former Russian Vice-President Alexander Rutskoi told NTV.

This is from the Experimental Aircraft Association's website at http://www.youngeagles.com/

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