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Russia Criticizes Washington Contact With Chechens
MOSCOW, March 27 (News Agencies) - Russia accused Washington of siding with "terrorism" Tuesday after a senior U.S. official held talks with an envoy from the separatist republic of Chechnya.
But Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, on a working visit to the Belarus capital Minsk, ruled out any immediate response.
The foreign ministry described as "immoral" a meeting in Washington between U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary of State for the Newly Independent States John Beyrle and Chechen envoy Ilyas Akhmadov, whom a spokesman accused of having "blood on his hands."
By going ahead with the meeting with Chechnya's foreign minister, the U.S. administration "has shown which side it is really on in the international fight against terrorism," the ministry said.
The meeting, said to have lasted "several hours" Monday, was bitterly opposed by Moscow, which has warned repeatedly that it would have negative consequences.
However Kasyanov, while stressing that he took a dim view of the meeting, told reporters that Russia was not planning a response.
"We do not want to raise the question this way, the way of counter-measures," he said, while in the Russian capital a succession of officials took turns to express their anger.
"Where earlier for a great civilized power to take such a step appeared unnatural, after the latest bloody Chechen crimes, Washington's action can simply be described as immoral," the foreign ministry said, referring to three weekend car bomb attacks that killed 23 people and wounded more than 130 in the northern Caucasus.
Foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said that Washington's action would be seen as "unfriendly" towards Russia.
"We are aware of State Department arguments that they need first-hand information. But from whose hands? From the hands of terrorist representatives, drenched in the blood of civilians?" he asked on ORT television.
Officials for the Kremlin's Chechnya spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky said the contacts between Beyrle and Akhmadov "reflect Washington's double standards in its relations with Russia" and "contribute nothing to Russia's fight against terrorism."
The U.S. State Department "managed to receive Akhmadov and condemn the terrorist acts on the same day," they noted.
The chairman of the State Duma foreign affairs committee Dmitry Rogozin said there were now "solid grounds to add the United States to the list of those who officially support terrorism."
Moscow had earlier threatened to retaliate in the event of the Akhmadov meeting going ahead, seeing Akhmadov as part of a "terrorist" faction bent on criminally violating Russia's sovereignty over Chechnya.
It has blamed Saturday's deadly car bomb attacks on Chechen separatists, though separatist Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov has denied involvement.
Kremlin officials quoted by the ITAR-TASS news agency said Tuesday that the explosives used in the blasts - at Mineralnye Vody and Yesentuky, in the Stavropol district bordering Chechnya, and in the nearby republic of Karachayevo-Cherkesya - were of the kind used by sabotage groups operating for Chechen leader Khattab.
Some 73 of those wounded were still in hospital three days later, the Interfax news agency reported, saying that three were listed as critical and 15 in very serious condition.
The market at Mineralnye Vody, where 21 people died, remained closed despite pressure for a reopening from local traders. Tight security measures were in place, Russian television reported.
In Chechnya itself security forces tightened controls at roadblocks throughout the republic, the ITAR-TASS news agency said.
Russian troops beat back an attempt overnight Monday by several Chechen fighters to storm the railway station in the capital Grozny, the same agency reported.
The attack, in which several separatists were killed, was one of the fiercest staged in Grozny since Russian troops took control of the shelled-out city last February, the agency quoted federal soldiers as saying.
Moscow has claimed success in its "anti-terrorist" operation despite evidence that large areas of the republic remain outside its control.
Russia has begun scaling down its military presence in Chechnya, where it intervened massively on October 1, 1999.
It has handed over responsibility for security to interior ministry and FSB (ex-KGB, security department) forces.
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