Russian activists urge Putin to start talks with Chechen resistance leader
(Prague Watchdog) - A group of prominent Russian human rights defenders and public figures have sent an open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin asking him not to blow the chance provided by Chechen resistance leader Aslan Maskhadov, and to start talks with the moderate wing of the resistance in order to resolve the crisis in Chechnya by political means.
Their open letter follows Maskhadov's order to stop, as a gesture of goodwill, all offensive operations in February. While Moscow-backed officials in Chechnya immediately denounced his ceasefire order as "a bluff", the Kremlin has remained silent.
"It's very easy to simply ignore this unprecedented move of the opponent ... but this will only result in the moderate wing being pushed further into the background by radical guerrilla groups... And no one will be able to stop the eventual transformation of the Chechen war into an "eternal conflict" and prevent it from spreading throughout Northern Caucasus," states the letter, which today appeared on the Russian human rights website "Za prava cheloveka".
"Mr. President! Peace talks with the moderate guerrilla wing is an all-promising political option, and virtually the only way of preventing Chechnya from turning into another zone of confrontation between radical Islam and the Western civilization," the letter continues.
"Negotiation is the only option to be achieved by political means, when difficult to achieve by military means."
The signatories include Lyudmila Alekseyeva and Valery Borshchev (both of the Moscow Helsinki Group), Svetlana Gannushkina (Grazhdanskoye sodeystviye), Sergei Kovalev, Tatyana Kasatkina and Oleg Orlov (all with Memorial), Anna Politkovskaya (Novaya gazeta journalist), Lev Ponomarev and Yuli Rybakov (Za prava cheloveka), Yuri Samodurov (Andrei Sakharov Museum), Aleksandr Tkachenko (writer) and others. (T/E)
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