#6150
#7
Russia will not permit formation of tribunal on
Chechnya similar to ICTY - Kremlin aide
MOSCOW. March 21 (Interfax) - Russian presidential aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky believes that Lord Judd, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) spokesman on Chechnya, has an inadequate evaluation of reality. That was his comment in a Thursday interview with Interfax on the statement of Lord Judd, who said the PACE spring session should consider how to guarantee prosecution of persons responsible for the violation of human rights in Chechnya.
"Either Lord Judd does not formulate his idea accurately enough, or this is an attempt to lead matters to the formation of a certain international tribunal for Chechnya, similar to the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. If the latter is true, I have to disappoint the lord and those whose ideas he is expressing. Chechnya is not Bosnia or Kosovo, and Russia is not the former Yugoslavia, no matter how someone would like it to be so," Yastrzhembsky said.
In Chechnya, "Russia is fighting international terrorism, the way the United States and other partners of Moscow are fighting it in Afghanistan," the Kremlin aide said.
"The very idea of an international trial, the same as mediation in Chechnya, is senseless and hopeless," he said.
"PACE deputies may raise the question of Russian justice investigating some one or other incident in Chechnya, including individual illegal actions of federal troops," he said.
"We will only thank them for that, because it meets our own interests," Yastrzhembsky said. "However, neither Lord Judd nor [ICTY prosecutor] Carla del Ponte, who evidently interprets her mandate quite arbitrarily and a few days ago met with emissaries of [Chechen separatist leader Aslan] Maskhadov, nor anyone else will be allowed to intimidate Moscow with the consequences of resisting terrorism in Chechnya," he said.
Back to the Top Next Article
- Back to the Top -