United Nations Urged To Play Transition Role Chechnya

Some 145 members of the European parliament–that is, nearly one-fourth of the body’s total membership–have signed a statement supporting a temporary administration of Chechnya by the United Nations. The UN administration would serve as a transition to a full-fledged peace, as proposed by the foreign ministry of Chechnya’s underground separatist government headed by Aslan Maskhadov. The plan would entail the withdrawal of all federal troops from Chechnya and the disarming of Chechen gunmen.

Oleg Orlov of the human rights center Memorial in Moscow said that the parliamentarians’ initiative “shows that many European politicians are soberly aware of what is happening in Chechnya, that they have not been taken in by the fraudulent claim that a peace settlement is already taking place.”