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No threat of separatism in North Caucasus â€” Kadyrov

12 February 2010 01:19 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov dismissed the existence of separatist moods in the North Caucasus, but said that small groups of militants are still active in the volatile region, APA reports citing Ria Novosti.

"I’m convinced that none of the North Caucasus peoples has even a slightest [separatist] idea," he said in an interview to be published on Friday in the Rossiyskaya Gazeta government daily.

He said that some forces were still seeking to destabilize situation in the North Caucasus, knowing its strategic and political importance for Russia. Chechnya has seen a dramatic surge in violence recently, undermining efforts to bring life back to normal in the region after two brutal separatist wars in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The Chechen leader said, however, that information from many independent sources "gives us grounds to think that there are only several dozens of militants active on the Chechen territory."

"Small militant groups are still hiding in forests. We would have dealt with them long ago if not for the support they get from abroad. Now they can hardly be useful to foreign special services, so the financial support is shrinking. So, the militants that we captured tell us they are virtually starving there, in forests," Kadyrov said.
Kadyrov, who often faces accusations of human rights abuses, reiterated his willingness to cooperate with rights organizations. The Chechen leader said that he had numerous meetings with human rights activists and provided all necessary assistance to those working in Chechnya.

"During discussions on reported human rights violations I suggested establishing joint commissions to study the problem and to thoroughly investigate who is guilty and who is not. Strangely enough, human rights activists seemed less than enthusiastic about it," he said.

On Tuesday Kadyrov’s spokesman said the Chechen president had withdrawn his libel claims against Russian human rights activists who accused him of involvement in the death of a colleague, Natalya Estemirova. In July, Oleg Orlov, the director of the Russian rights group Memorial, had accused Kadyrov of involvement in the murder of Estemirova, who was abducted outside her home in Grozny, Chechnya’s capital, on July 15 and found shot dead in the neighboring republic of Ingushetia later the same day.
Her murder, which sparked international outrage, was followed three weeks later by the killings of Zarema Sadulayeva and her husband, Alik Dzhabrailov, who both worked for a Chechen charity.