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BAKU, Aug 14 (AFP)-Azerbaijani officials have angrily rejected Russian charges that the country was hosting a network for Chechen Islamists, which included medical treatment and salary payments. The central command of Russian forces in Chechnya said Friday that injured Chechen fighters were receiving leg prostheses and salary payments in Azerbaijan. Refugees were also being paid stipends, officials reported. "This information does not correspond to the truth," said a spokesperson for the Azerbaijani Health Ministry. "No wounded Chechens have arrived in the country to receive prostheses." An official at the Chechen representation in Baku added that it was impossible for Chechen fighters to enter the country, as the Islamist republic's borders are closely controlled and are not contingent with Azerbaijan. The official also said that reports of salary payments were "very funny." Azerbaijan and its Caucasus neighbor Georgia have been accused during the course of the Kremlin's operation in the north Caucasus of providing refuge and transit to Chechen Islamists. Baku and Tbilisi flatly deny the charges. Azeri President Heydar Aliyev also lashed out recently at a U.S. report claiming that Azerbaijan was aiding international terrorists and called it evidence of Washington's unfair policy towards his country. A July 11 U.S. State Department report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism," said that Azerbaijan served as a logistic hub for international mujahideen with ties to terrorist groups, some of whom supported the Chechens Islamic struggles in Russia. The U.S. State Department later issued a correction in which it stated that although it stood by what it wrote earlier, "the report does not indicate that Azerbaijan is a state sponsor of terrorism." |
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