Plan to establish interim UN administration in Chechnya raises debates among separatists

The human rights organization Sintar issued a press release on March 24 informing of the collection of signatures under the appeal "For an Interim United Nations Administration in Chechnya."

This proposal was made by the foreign minister of the unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Ilyas Akhmadov, in the beginning of 2003. The chairman of the Ichkerian parliamentary committee on foreign relations, Akhyad Idigov, has sent a letter to Sintar via e-mail in which he asserts that Akhmadov's plan is a trap if not reviewed and suggests reading his article "Zigzags of the Chechen Foreign Policy."

The statement by the Sintar organization reads: "Before we started to collect signature, we had seriously discussed this plan. The withdrawal of Russian troops, the establishment of the international UN administration in Chechnya, and finally the building of the independent democratic state in Chechnya - all these ideas are touched on in Akhmadov's plan."

"The first virtue of the plan is the statement by president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria Aslan Maskhadov that this plan was elaborated on his instructions. The second virtue is that this plan has won international recognition and support. Over 20,000 people in dozens of countries have signed the appeal in support of it," reads the statement.

In his article "Zigzags of the Chechen Foreign Policy", Akhyad Idigov writes about the restoration of the statehood of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in 1991. "Idigov cannot but remember that he stays on the territory of western countries not with a passport of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. One has never recognized such a passport. Only when the first Chechen shows an Ichkerian foreign passport to a customs official and the latter salutes him and let him go, the Chechen Republic can be considered to have become truly independent, to have become a subject of international law. The Chechens were given hope to achieve such independence when Akhmadov's plan appeared and, which is the main, when it won support in the West," the Sintar organization sums up.

Editors note: See also the article "Human rights organization Sintar joins collection of signatures for interim UN administration in Chechnya".