BASAEV OPPOSES BUT OBSERVES ARMISTICE.

Publication: Monitor Volume: 2 Issue: 129

Chechen field commander Shamil Basaev said today that he had opposed the armistice with Moscow, but that he was submitting to the resistance leadership’s collective decision. Basaev said that Russian troops would only withdraw from Chechnya if forced out militarily. (Reuter, July 1). Russia’s chief armistice negotiator Vyacheslav Mikhailov and military commander in Chechnya, Lt. General Vyacheslav Tikhomirov publicly called over the weekend for direct negotiations "even with Basaev" and other field commanders, bypassing the political leadership of the resistance. (Interfax, Itar-Tass, Interfax, June 29 and 30) Last month Basaev had told the Moscow Obshchaya gazeta that Chechens accept living in a common home with Russia but want their own apartment in that home with no Russian troops in Chechnya.

Crime and Foreigners.