Kuala Lumpur, 17 October: Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the federal centre is willing to sign with the Chechen Republic a treaty on division of powers with broad autonomous rights for Chechnya, and also to assist in the election of a Chechen parliament. He said this in an interview for the Qatari satellite TV channel Al-Jazeera.
"We intend to provide assistance (to the residents of Chechnya) in electing their parliament and are willing to sign a treaty between the federal centre and the Chechen Republic on the division of powers with broad autonomous rights for Chechnya," Putin said.
Putin noted that Chechnya has now arrived "at the point of a fully-formed political process". A referendum has been conducted there, "for which more than 80 per cent of the electors turned out" and "voted in favour of the constitution of Chechnya, which says clearly that the Chechen Republic is an inseparable part of the Russian Federation", he said.
"Now we have conducted the election of a president of the Chechen Republic. And the turnout for that was also 80 per cent. A legal president has been elected", Putin said, stressing that "you cannot force people to come and vote. If somebody came, it means they wanted to."
"We are not restricting ourselves, and we are not going to restrict ourselves to these measures," he said. "We are certain that by following this path consistently, we will achieve a comprehensive long-term settlement."
_________________________________________________________________ Enjoy MSN 8 patented spam control and more with MSN 8 Dial-up Internet Service. Try it FREE for one month! http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup