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STOCKHOLM, May 3 (AFP)-Sweden appealed on Wednesday for Russia to end its war in Chechnya and warned that a protracted conflict could strengthen rather than eliminate Islamic movements in the Caucasus. Foreign Minister Anna Lindh said Sweden understood Russia's argument that it had launched a military campaign in the Muslim republic last autumn as a response to terrorist attacks in Russia and to check growth of armed Islamic groups there. "But I do think it's a very simple argument, a very dangerous argument, because it's very close to being an argument against Islam or the Muslim population as such," she said. "They have to be very careful... it might be that they increase the fundamentalist tendency within the Islamic movement in that part of the world," Lindh cautioned. She said that in its optimism about a new Russian leadership the West risked losing sight of the human rights principles it had pressed Moscow to respect in Chechnya. "I think it's dangerous if other countries are one day arguing very much against Russia in Chechnya ... and two weeks later, after a new president, there is a reverse situation," Lindh said. "Some countries might have forgotten about Chechnya and are only discussing future projects with Russia" and its new president, Vladimir Putin, she said. She spoke after Chechnya's self-styled president, Aslan Maskhkadov, said that talks were under way to organize a meeting between him and Putin. The Kremlin denied the claim.
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