Author:
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: November 11, 2002
URL: http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/nov/11putin.htm
Rejecting the European demands for
a political dialogue with the Chechen rebels, Russia President Vladimir
Putin has said that Osama bin Laden, Taliban leader Mullah Omar and other
like-minded people are calling the shots in Kashmir, West Asia, Chechnya
and other parts of the world.
"These guys kill hundreds and thousands
of innocent people not just for their pleasure, but they make political
demands also," he said. "They are putting their demands before the United
States, before the European and Arab states, demands concerning the Middle
East and also Kashmir, and in our case it is Chechnya."
Putin said this in a statement on
Sunday at a Kremlin meeting with pro- Moscow Chechen political, business
and religious leaders.
"To those who thoughtlessly or deliberately,
out of fear of the bandits or following the lingering European tradition
of appeasement, will continue to urge us to sit down at the negotiating
table with the killers, I suggest that they should enter in to talks with
Bin Laden or Mullah Omar," Putin said.
He cautioned that any body at home
or abroad urging for talks with the self- styled Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov
would be seen by the Kremlin as "an accomplice of terrorists".
Putin's statement comes ahead of
his Brussels visit for Russia-EU summit, where Maskhadov is projected as
the only legitimate negotiations partner for Moscow in Chechnya peace talks.
PTI
