Putin under pressure - interview with the President (excerpts)The president knows what needs to be done to make Russia an attractive
partner for the west. Andrew Gowers, Robert Cottrell and Andrew Jack
find him patient and pragmatic
Behind the high red Kremlin walls and the barred gates, beyond the
domed lobbies and the endless pink-carpeted corridors, it comes down to this: a small waiting room with a television and a kitchenette, a reception desk with a big old-fashioned telephone switchboard, and a pair of double doors leading through to the private office.
The plaque on the wall declares the office belongs to "V. V. Putin,
President of the Russian Federation". But few people who get this far
can be ignorant of that detail.
Vladimir Putin is courteous, soft-spoken and very tired indeed. His
conversation with the Financial Times begins at 9.30 in the evening and ends after 11.00. He talks readily and extensively. But there are few, if any, moments of relaxation or improvisation. He has had a long and difficult day.
[...]
FT: For the war on terrorism, do you expect more support from the international coalition in Chechnya?
Mr Putin: We believe that this would be well grounded, and fair. And we should state honestly what has been happening there all this time, what is happening there now.
In 1996 Russia withdrew all its military and law enforcement forces from the territory of Chechnya. Thus de facto, if not de jure, we granted independence to Chechnya. So nobody can accuse us of suppressing the desire of the Chechen people for independence. Once already we have given them such an opportunity.
And you know what the result was. What happened was that this legal and ideological vacuum was filled immediately with international terrorists and fundamentalists. What we got instead of a new state entity was a quasi-state of a terrorist nature.
As of today our armed forces are not pursuing any large scale military operations there. What is happening there is the rehabilitation of peaceful life, of the social sphere. This is a complex process that will call for much more time. Of course this will call for the continuation of our dialogue with the Chechen people.
Within the framework of the constitution of the Russian Federation,
Chechnya can be granted rather broad autonomy. But we cannot afford to make the same error a second time, we cannot repeat what happened in 1996 when an enclave was created which destabilised the whole Russian Federation. We cannot afford this any more. The vast majority of the Chechen people want to live peacefully, in harmony with each other, they want to have normal conditions to rear their children.
The best example of the fact that we are pursuing dialogue with all groups of the Chechen population is that fact that the head of the current Chechen administration is someone who before 1996 fought against Russian federal forces with arms in his hands.
As for disruptive forces, there are two major groups there. They are not numerous but they are there. There are international terrorists, mostly from Arabic countries. And there is the residue of separatist bandit formations.
As for the international terrorists, it is clear that these are people raised and trained in Afghanistan in military camps run by Al Qaeda, financed by [Osama] bin Laden, and neither the Russian nor the European nor the US intelligence services have any doubt about it.
As for the second group, the separatists, they are certainly linked up to a great extent with the first group. Russia does not support separatism in other countries and we hope that no other countries will support separatism in the Russian Federation. If we allow people to try to redelineate borders, especially in Europe, then Europe will tumble into an abyss of continuous confrontation and ethnic wars.
There is a humanitarian aspect to [Chechen policy], the support for human rights. In this regard we are ready to co-operate with international organisations and do our best to prevent problems. A lot is being done in this regard. The judiciary is operating in Chechnya. The prosecutor's office is in operation there. Our law enforcement agencies are fighting not only terrorists and separatists but also the military who commit some crimes. Criminal actions have been instigated against 20 Russian servicemen. They have been sentenced to various punishments.
We will do our best to provide everything necessary to prepare the
public for parliamentary elections and the elections of an executive.
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