MOSCOW/WASH­ING­TON-Rus­sia's fi­nance min­is­ter re­belled yes­ter­day against Vladimir Putin's plan to make Pres­i­dent Dmit­ry Medvedev his prime min­is­ter if he re­turns to the Krem­lin by say­ing he would not serve in the next gov­ern­ment. For­eign in­vestors were alarmed by Alex­ei Ku­drin's snub af­ter Putin, who is now prime min­is­ter, an­nounced he would run for pres­i­dent next March in an elec­tion that could ex­tend his rule un­til 2024. Ku­drin, a Putin al­ly, has prime min­is­te­r­i­al am­bi­tions and said he had "dis­agree­ments" with Medvedev who may now strug­gle to es­tab­lish his cred­i­bil­i­ty as pre­mier af­ter be­ing forced by Putin to re­nounce his dream of a sec­ond term as pres­i­dent.

"I do not see my­self in a new gov­ern­ment," Ku­drin, 50, said in com­ments re­leased in Wash­ing­ton, where he was meet­ing glob­al pol­i­cy­mak­ers. Ku­drin won the re­spect of in­vestors as a guardian of fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty by sav­ing wind­fall oil rev­enues for a rainy-day fund, which helped Rus­sia through the 2008 glob­al eco­nom­ic cri­sis. He said this month that he want­ed to be part of the next gov­ern­ment if it was re­form-mind­ed and his re­marks yes­ter­day will not help lift con­fi­dence in Rus­sia's econ­o­my af­ter a fall in stocks and the rou­ble last week. Reuters