Chechen president conducts talks with separatist leader Maskhadov

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, April 08, 2004

Chechen president conducts talks with separatist leader Maskhadov

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Chechen President Akhmat Kadyrov reported on Wednesday that he conducts phone talks with leader of separatists Aslan Maskhadov. "I told him that the only way for him to survive is to come voluntary, to bow low and to ask for pardon from his people from the bottom of the heart," he said in an interview with reporters in Gudermes.

"I shall appeal for pardoning Maskhadov if he personally meets me," he emphasized.

At the same time, replying to Tass, Kadyrov said that he could give a security guarantee to Maskhadov only after talks with the Russian leadership.

Earlier in the day, the Chechen president confirmed the stand of the republican leadership on impossibility of any talks with leader of separatists Maskhadov, apart from discussing the question on his surrender to law enforcement bodies."There will be no talks with Maskhadov. I shall speak with him only about his surrender," Kadyrov said at a meeting with former deputies of the so-called Ichkeria republic.

In the opinion of Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov, the question on amnesty of Maskhadov is a competence of investigation bodies. "I do not think personally that amnesty can be granted to Maskhadov," the minister said in Oslo this week.

According to Ivanov, "it is clear long ago that separatist leaders cannot engineer any major combat operations in Chechnya. They do not seek even to do so. The only thing Basayev now does is to prepare kamikazes and terror acts, mostly outside Chechnya".

Minister also reported that "Shamil Basayev is in Russia. As for zeroing in on his place of residence, it��s the question of time".

The headquarters of the United Army Group in the North Caucasus told Tass on Wednesday that commandoes of federal troops in mountains and the Vostok battalion under the command of Sulim Yamadayev are carrying out an operation to detain Maskhadov in the south of Chechnya.

The headquarters added that the security service of the Chechen president has information that Maskhadov was secretly brought for rest to a village in southern Chechnya. Law enforcement bodies detained 20 gunmen who ensured the trip of the separatist leader to those areas.

According to the headquarters, Maskhadov now has two ways out of the present situation: to flee Chechnya. "But this is a hazardous road: he remembers the deplorable example of Gelayev, killed in Dagestan mountains. The second �C to surrender to law enforcement bodies. In this case, he will be called to criminal responsibility for engineering an armed mutiny and under several articles of the Russian Criminal Code," the military noted.

Source: agencies

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