The Hindu : Russia shuts OSCE mission in Chechnya

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 02, 2003

International

International

Russia shuts OSCE mission in Chechnya

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW JAN. 1. Russia has closed down an international monitoring mission in Chechnya in a new rift with the West over its "double standards'' on terrorism. Moscow said the mandate of the Organisation for Security Cooperation in Europe mission in Chechnya, which expired on December 31, was not being renewed because of differences over OSCE role in the region.

Russia has been unhappy with the organisation's calls for peace talks with Chechen rebels and criticism of what it described as "excessive use of force'' in Chechnya. The OSCE mission in Chechnya, opened in 1995, helped broker a peace accord in 1996 that ended Russia's first two-year war in the breakaway region.

However, today Moscow insists it is up against international terrorists in Chechnya and has ruled out any talks with them. The Russian Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, last week called on the West to renounce the policy of "double standards on terrorism'' in Chechnya. Russia wanted the OSCE mission to confine its activities in Chechnya to distribution of humanitarian aid and resettlement of refugees.

``It is to be regretted that our partners were not prepared to adequately assess the situation and fully appreciate new realities obtaining in Chechnya,'' Mr. Ivanov told the Itar-Tass news agency. Russia's relations with with 55-nation OSCE and the European Parliament worsened after they failed to cut all contacts with representatives of the Chechen rebel leader, Aslan Maskhadov, in the wake of a Chechen raid on a Moscow theatre in which 129 hostages died. Over 80 people died in another rebel attack on a Government headquarters in the Chechen capital Grozny last week.

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