Who will press USA on the "political solution" in Afghanistan ?
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of
Miroslav Antic
Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2001 2:28 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; BALKAN; NATO; Siem-News; SNN; 'SNN-Yahoo'
Cc: SIN
Subject: [SNN] [www.ANTIC.org] US to press Russia on Chechnya in
Shanghai talks: Powell
US to press Russia on Chechnya in Shanghai talks: Powell
SHANGHAI, Oct 18 (AFP) -
The United States will press Russia on finding a political solution to
the
rebellion in the breakaway republic of Chechnya in talks here this week,
US
Secretary of State Colin Powell said late Wednesday.
"We will be encouraging them ... to seek a political solution, to move
aggressively toward a political solution and not to think that it can be
solved militarily," Powell said ahead of talks Thursday with his Russian
counterpart Igor Ivanov.
That meeting will set the stage for talks Sunday between US President
George
W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of a
meeting of
leaders from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
Powell said that Washington recognized that Moscow had to deal with
terrorist
acts and threats emanating from Chechen separatists but stressed that it
should do so without branding all Chechens "terrorists."
"We are anxious to work with them and we recognize that they have to
fight
terrorist activities in Chechnya (but) they have to do it in a way that
reflects solid consideration of human rights and past atrocities that we
know
took place," he told reporters aboard his plane en route to Shanghai.
"Not every Chechen who is in a resistance mode is necessarily a
terrorist,"
Powell said.
"We have to make some distinctions and judgements and ultimately the
only way
it can be sorted out and brought to ground is with a political
solution."
Russia had hoped that its unprecedented cooperation with the US-led war
on
terrorism, sparked by the September 11 attacks in New York and
Washington,
might reduce US criticism of its military campaign in Chechnya.
Putin insists on drawing a parallel between the terrorist threat being
fought
by the Western powers and that which he says Russia is fighting in
Chechnya.
Bush gave a nod to Moscow last month when he said he believed members of
Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, the group blamed for the September
11
attacks, were in Chechnya and that they should be brought to justice.
On October 2, Moscow said four of the 19 hijackers named as responsible
for
the terror attacks in the US had fought for the separatist rebels in
Chechnya.
Radical Chechen separatists have denied they are in contact with bin
Laden,
but have acknowledged having "diplomatic" links with Afghanistan's
ruling
Taliban militia.
Earlier this week, US national security advisor Condoleezza Rice urged
Chechen separatists to distance themselves from "terrorist elements."
"We know that there are terrorist elements in and around Chechnya," Rice
said
in an interview with the Russian newspaper Izvestia that appeared on
Monday.
"We call on the Chechen leaders to distance themselves from the
terrorists
which could be in their ranks," Rice told the Izvestia daily.
Serbian News Network - SNN
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