Russia demands crackdown on Chechens in Union

Date: 31/10/02

By David Cronin

RUSSIA is due to use its summit with the EU to press for a crackdown on Chechens in member states.

The venue for the 11 November meeting was switched from Copenhagen to Brussels after Vladimir Putin's government objected to a recent World Chechen Congress held in the Danish capital. Denmark refused to ban the event because its constitution guarantees freedom of speech and assembly.

But there are signs that the Danish presidency wants to avoid a major rift with Moscow. Police in Copenhagen yesterday (30 October) arrested Akhmed Zakayev, emissary of Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov. Zakayev is suspected of involvement in planning last week's hijack of a Moscow theatre, which ended in the deaths of 119 hostages and 50 of their captors.

Russia is pressing for his extradition, but Denmark said it would not hand him over unless Moscow guarantees he will not receive the death penalty.

Putin is also likely to demand the arrest or extradition of other Chechen separatists on Union territory. The UK, Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands host envoys of the ousted Chechen government.

And Russia is also expected to urge the EU to add Chechen rebel groups to its list of proscribed organisations, drawn up following last year's 11 September atrocities in the US.

While expressing sympathy for those who died in the theatre siege, the EU delegation at the summit is likely to discourage Putin from using heavy-handed tactics in the breakaway Chechen republic. Foreign policy chief Javier Solana said: 'We know there is no military solution and therefore there has to be some kind of political solution.'

His comment was echoed by Daniel Cohn-Bendit, leader of the European Parliament's Green group, who called for the EU to sponsor dialogue between the mostly Muslim Chechen rebels and the Putin administration.

'Putin must renounce the war option, which is pushing Chechen resistance towards fundamentalism,' he added.

Russia last night named the gas used by its special forces when they stormed the Melnikov Street theatre last weekend. Health Minister Yuri Shevchenko said it was based on fentanyl, an opium-based narcoticnormally used as an anaesthetic.

Russia is due to use its summit with the EU on 11 November 2002 to press for a crackdown on Chechens in Member States.