|
Russia To Begin Chechnya Troop Withdrawal In Mid-February
MOSCOW, Jan 24 (News Agencies) - Russia's army said Wednesday it would begin pulling out troops from Chechnya in mid-February but stressed that a heavy military presence would still be stationed in the volatile republic.
The announcement follows President Vladimir Putin's decision to reduce the number of soldiers permanently stationed in Chechnya to 22,000 and shifting control of the campaign from the defense ministry to the secret services.
Some 80,000 Russian troops are currently in the volatile north Caucasus region.
"The troop withdrawal will be carried out gradually, with the military situation in Chechnya taken into account," a defense ministry press spokesman said.
However, the ministry stressed that Russia's battle-readiness would not be affected by the withdrawal and remained vague about the pace at which the demilitarization process would take place.
"We are not yet discussing ... the question of pulling out all of the army divisions," a ministry spokesman said.
"We cannot give a firm figure of how many troops will be pulled out of Chechnya in February, because this process will take place in stages," said the ministry spokesman.
Meanwhile, the head of Chechnya's pro-Moscow administration said that Russia should be able to handle any opposition attacks even if it halved its military presence in the war-torn republic.
Akhmad Kadyrov further welcomed Putin's decision to hand control of the Chechen military operation to the Federal Security Service (FSB, former KGB), which he said was best equipped to hunt down remaining Chechen seapartists, Interfax reported.
Russian estimates of the strength of the separatist force in Chechnya vary, but one army general last week put the number of armed Chechen fighters at about 1,000.
Russia's announcement of a troop withdrawal coincides with a Council of Europe vote Thursday on whether to reinstate Moscow's voting rights within the pan-European human rights group.
Last April, Russia became the first member in the Council of Europe's 50-year history to be stripped of its voting rights because of human rights abuses committed by federal troops in Chechnya.
Moscow insists its 15-month campaign in Chechnya is a legitimate "anti-terrorist" operation meant to disarm and eliminate Islamists who have destabilized Russia's southern rim for years.
Some 2,700 Russian troops are reported to have been killed in the North Caucasus since Moscow launched its armed intervention against separatists based in Dagestan in August 1999.
But Putin said earlier this week that there were no longer any large-scale hostilities in Chechnya, so Russia no longer needed to maintain its present force in the republic.
|
