Chechen rebel leader calls for personal
meeting with Putin
By MARIA DANILOVA
Associated Press Writer
536 words
4
March 2005
14:55
Associated Press Newswires
English
(c) 2005. The Associated
Press. All Rights Reserved.
MOSCOW (AP) - Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov called for a
one-on-one meeting with President Vladimir Putin, saying a brief talk could end the decade-long conflict in
Chechnya, according to an interview posted Friday on a pro-rebel Web site.
"We believe that
a 30-minute, frank tete-a-tete dialogue will be enough to stop the war, to explain to the president of the
Russian Federation what the Chechens actually want ... and hear from Putin what he wants, what Russia wants in
Chechnya," Maskhadov was quoted as saying on the Web site www.chechenpress.co.uk .
Maskhadov
warned, however, that if Russian authorities refuse to negotiate with him, his militants will "stand till the
end and the flame of this war's fire will engulf the whole North Caucasus" -- a reference to the restive
southern Russian region that includes Chechnya.
Maskhadov -- who was elected president of
Chechnya in 1997 during its de-facto independence but driven out of power by Russian forces in 1999 -- has
called for talks before. A Maskhadov envoy signed a peace memorandum in Britain last month with representatives
of a Russian rights group that wants the Kremlin to talk peace with rebels.
Putin repeatedly
has refused to negotiate with Chechen rebels, labeling them terrorists, and Russian officials have emphasized
that there is nothing to discuss with Maskhadov but his surrender, accusing him of backing terrorist attacks
that have plagued Russia in recent years.
At the same time, some Russian officials say
Maskhadov has little control over most of the militants in Chechnya. But Maskhadov said that militants under his
command are fighting not only in Chechnya but in neighboring southern provinces.
"We have
been forced to widen the front of our military resistance, additional sectors have been ordered to be set up --
in Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkariya, Dagestan and others," Maskhadov said.
Russia's southern
provinces have been plagued by violence, including the September school hostage-taking in the city of Beslan in
which 330 people were killed.
"Russian people will constantly fear the possible revenge of
suicide bombers in response to all the misdeeds committed by the FSB and federal troops in Chechnya," Maskhadov
was quoted as saying. The FSB is the Federal Security Service, the main successor of the Soviet KGB.
Akhmed Zakayev, a Maskhadov envoy who lives in Britain, told The Associated Press the interview
was authentic.
Russian forces pulled out of Chechnya after a 20-month war in 1994-1996. They
rolled back in September 1999 after Chechnya-based rebels raided a neighboring province and after a series of
apartment building explosions blamed on the militants.
Zakayev and representatives of the
Union of Committees of Soldiers' Mothers, a prominent Russian non-governmental organization that acts as a
watchdog over the Russian military, signed a peace memorandum in Britain late last month, hailing it as a first
step toward ending the war in Chechnya.
But a senior official in the Kremlin-backed Chechen
government dismissed their talks as hopeless.
The Kremlin has refused to negotiate with
rebel leaders since an unproductive meeting between Zakayev and a Putin envoy in November 2001.
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