EU maintains tough stance on Moscow

Date: 06/04/2000

By Simon Taylor

THE Union will warn Russia next week that it intends to maintain its tough stance on Moscow's human rights record in Chechnya, even though most of the rebel armed forces in the region have now been defeated.

EU foreign ministers will tell their Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov that a range of sanctions will remain in place until Moscow holds public investigations into alleged war crimes by Russian soldiers in the Caucasus and acts to improve the situation of an estimated 200,000 refugees.

Member states agreed last December to limit financial assistance to Russia to human rights and democratisation projects, and to toughen their stance on trade issues in protest at the suffering of civilians in Moscow's six-month conflict with separatist rebels.

But Union governments have shied away from introducing stronger measures, preferring instead to maintain dialogue with Russia to keep up the pressure for an improvement in the situation in the Caucasus.

Ivanov has already responded to the EU's calls for full and transparent investigations into human rights abuses in a letter pointing out that the Russian judiciary has launched more than 100 investigations into alleged crimes and promising that any offenders will be punished in accordance with Russian law.

Union governments have pointed to Moscow's decision to charge a Russian tank commander with raping and murdering a Chechnyan civilian as a step in the right direction. But human rights groups maintain that prosecuting individuals does not address the scale of abuses committed during the conflict.

A high-level delegation made up of Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten and Portuguese foreign ministry officials travelled to Moscow this week for talks ahead of next Monday's (10 April) cooperation council meeting in Luxembourg.

The European Union is to warn Russia that it intends to maintain its tough stance on Moscow's human rights record in Chechnya, even though most of the rebel armed forces in the region have now been defeated.