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Chechen rebel chief "not a terrorist": UN refugee chief

The UN refugee chief challenged Moscow's view of rebel Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov as a terrorist, describing him as a "key person" in the search for a settlement in the war-torn republic.

"Maskhadov is certainly not a terrorist," UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers told a news conference after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov on Friday.

"One might criticise him that he was not always able to stop certain acts of violence. But if I speak about the Chechens looking for a way forward, excluding foreign elements and excluding new acts of violence, then Maskhadov has to be a key person in that," the former Dutch prime minister said.

Russian and Chechen envoys held their first direct peace talks since the beginning of the brutal 27 month-long conflict in November, when a Kremlin envoy met a Maskhadov representative at Moscow's international airport.

But Russia has since poured cold water on the prospect of further talks, saying it is only interested in negotiating the rebels' disarmament and surrender, and fighting has carried on in the southern republic.

Russia describes Maskhadov and other separatists as terrorists, and ceased to recognize him as Chechen president following the entry of Russian troops in the breakaway republic on October 1, 1999 to stamp Moscow's rule there again.

Maskhadov was elected president of Chechnya in 1997 just months after Russia suffered a humiliating defeat in a 1994-96 war of independence, in a poll overseen by the OSCE pan-European security body.

Russia has consistently tried to establish a direct link between Chechen separatist fighters and international terrorism, including Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization, especially since the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Lubbers condemned Muslim extremists among the Chechen rebel ranks, such as Jordanian-born Khattab, describing them as terrorists.

But he insisted that many guerrilla fighters based in the republic's southern mountains did not fall under the same category and could take part in building a peaceful Chechnya.

"For the Chechen population, in the Chechen tradition, there is no place for foreign elements who came there trying to mingle in and carrying out acts of violence and terrorism," said the UN official.

"The Chechens themselves must agree with their own society, elders, their own systems, to decide we want to stop imports of violence and build a peaceful Chechnya.

"Many who are now hiding in the mountains are not terrorists," he said.

Lubbers criticized abuses by the Russian military in Chechnya as "totally unacceptable."

"There is clear evidence of violations of human rights. In the past there have been a number of incidents and we see reports coming in again and again," he said.

The Russian authorities must "prevent repetition of these events," the UN envoy added.

Human rights organisations have frequently denounced Russian security round-ups in Chechnya which they say are often a pretext for looting, abitrary arrests and occasionally random killings.

A sweep by Russian troops through the Chechen town of Tsotsin-Yurt earlier this month left five civilians dead and six others missing, Russian human rights group Memorial said Thursday.