Russian forces will not withdraw from Chechnya until rebel leaders and their accomplices have been ”eliminated”, Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov has vowed.
”I consider it inappropriate to begin withdrawing troops from Chechnya while the chiefs of the rebel armies and their accomplices have not yet been eliminated,” the defence minister told a press conference in the far eastern town of Vladivostock, the Interfax news agency reported on Wednesday.
On Sunday, Ivanov suspended a plan to reduce the number of Russian troops in the breakaway province of Chechnya and announced the start of a large-scale operation against the rebels following a mass hostage-taking in a Moscow theatre while left 120 hostages and 41 assailants dead.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday he would not order any large-scale ”anti-terrorist” assaults in Chechnya in the wake of last month’s hostage siege in Moscow.
”We must continue anti-terrorist operations in Chechnya as we are still not free of the terrorists still hiding out there. But these must have specific targets. There must be no wide-scale operation,” Putin told state television.
Putin, whose tough stance towards separatists in Chechnya played a large part in his election victory in 1999, said such operations were ”harmful and therefore unacceptable”. – Sapa-AFP