Speaking on the eve of the 10-year anniversary of the Russian army advance into Chechnya, a top adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Moscow has few options left for a negotiated end to the violence.
| "Nope, nope, can't do it no more, nope." |
Aslambek Aslakhanov said a decade of war with Russia and internecine fighting among Chechen clans has stripped rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov, the republic's former president, of any real power. Speaking at Columbia University, Aslakhanov said Russia should focus on talks with lower-level rebel commanders who have not participated in terrorist acts. ``Maskhadov is just a banner'' the rebel groups rally around, he said. ``Without him, they are only a group of bandits, but he's weak as a president.''
| But they'll still try to whack him. |
His comments reflect official Kremlin policy of refusing negotiations with Maskhadov since the war in Chechnya flared for a second time in 1999, after a period of de facto independence after the first war. Moscow should focus instead on reconstruction and creating jobs in the devastated region, Aslakhanov said. Aslakhanov, on a weeklong trip to Great Britain and the United States to meet with anti-terrorism officials, said both countries have offered assistance in tracing foreign assistance provided to the Muslim insurgency in Chechnya, chiefly from Middle Eastern countries. The United States is assisting Russian authorities in determining the identity of three hostage-takers suspected of being from the Middle East, Khailov said. The two countries' intelligence agencies are exchanging ``operational data'' on the men, who were killed in the fighting that ended the siege, he said. The 9/11 Commission has offered assistance in probing the three-day Beslan ordeal, which ended with explosions and gunfire and left more than 338 people dead, more than half of them children. Aslakhanov, a former member of the Russian parliament from Chechnya who is considered the Kremlin's moderate voice on the war, was scheduled to meet Friday with commission members in Washington. |