Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Russias Putin rules out talks with Chechen separatists

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Russias Putin rules out talks with Chechen separatists

    Russias Putin rules out talks with Chechen separatists

    Agence France Presse -- English
    September 16, 2004 Thursday

    ASTANA Sept 16 -- Russias President Vladimir Putin on Thursday rejected
    the idea of negotiations with Chechen separatists blamed for the
    Beslan school siege at a regional summit focused on anti-terrorism.

    Putin said that holding talks with rebel leaders from Russia's
    breakaway republic of Chechnya would be akin to negotiating with
    Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

    "Bin Laden has twice offered Europe negotiations and no one thinks
    of negotiating with him. "These are people you cannot talk to,"
    Putin said.

    "Naturally the atrocities we encountered in Beslan gave us the complete
    moral right to insist that these people who are fighting against
    Russia are part of the terrorist internationale," he told journalists.

    Putin has repeatedly linked recent attacks in Russia that culminated in
    the deaths of more than 330 people at a school in the town of Beslan,
    near Chechnya, to international Islamic terrorism.

    His critics have focused more on local causes including corruption and
    the failure to seek a political solution to the more than five-year
    guerrilla war in Chechnya.

    The Russian leader was speaking at a meeting of heads of the
    12-member Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) bloc of former
    Soviet republics, in fact attended by only 10 of the countries leaders.

    But despite much talk of fighting terrorism, a news conference by
    the 10 exposed an array of tensions, including between Putin and the
    pro-Western Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili.

    Saakashvili lashed out at Putin for Moscow's ties with two breakaway
    Georgian republics, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

    "Russia can and should and should play a positive role in resolving
    all post-Soviet conflicts including (in Georgia). All contacts should
    be at a state level," he said.

    Georgia, which accuses Russia of encouraging separatism in its former
    satellite state as a means of weakening Tbilisi, says this contradicts
    Moscow's tough stance against Chechen pro-independence rebels.

    "These questions cannot be solved by double-standards," he said.

    Georgias anger at Moscows ties with Georgias break-away regions mounted
    last month after Putin held talks with the self-declared prime minister
    of Abkhazia ahead of controversial elections in the breakaway republic.

    The spat worsened after Russia restored railway traffic between Moscow
    and Abkhazia after a 12-year pause.

    Putin, however, rounded on Georgia for its attempts to rein in the
    renegade regions since Saakashvili came to power early this year
    vowing to reunite his fractured country.

    "An economic blockade, not to mention military pressure, do not result
    in resolving problems," he said.

    The meeting in a vast, gilded palace newly built by Kazakh President
    Nursultan Nazarbayev in Kazakhstans capital Astana ended with the
    transfer to Russia of the leadership of the CIS after an 18-month
    period in which Ukraine administered the group.

    The strained post-meeting news conference also featured a series
    of thinly veiled criticisms by Uzbekistans hardline President Islam
    Karimov at Central Asian neighbours he blamed for being soft on groups
    responsible for recent terror attacks in Uzbekistan that have left
    dozens dead.

    However Armenia and Azerbaijans presidents Robert Kocharian and Ilham
    Aliyev, whose countries have been in a bitter stand-off since fighting
    a war in the 1990s, took the opportunity to hold lengthy talks and
    promised to keep up their dialogue.

    Turkmenistan's reclusive President Saparmurat Niyazov declined to
    attend due to a prior medical appointment.

    Moldovan leader Vladimir Voronin also stayed away, criticising the
    body as ineffective.
Working...
X