| Saudi Wahhabis promised to give money to Kadyrov, not Maskhadov Akhmat Kadyrov said yesterday that he was pleased with his four-day trip to Saudi Arabia, where he was invited by the kingdom's Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud. The prince, to whom the President of Chechnya conveyed Vladimir Putin’s message, is ready to “progressively” be friends with Russia, the Ministry of Hajj Affairs seems to promise to help with visas for the least efficient Chechen and Dagestani pilgrims, and Saudi businessmen now want to donate money for the restoration of Chechnya, and not for support separatists.
The main result of the trip, indeed, can be considered the official recognition of the Kadyrov administration by the authorities and business elite of the main country of the Arab East. Akhmat Kadyrov himself is sure: before his arrival, few people in the kingdom had any idea what was really happening in Chechnya. According to the new Chechen president, the Saudi interlocutors were very interested in “who the so-called Wahhabis are and what they are.”
What exactly Akhmat Kadyrov explained “about the Wahhabis” to his inquisitive interlocutors from a country in which Wahhabism is the dominant Islamic movement is not entirely clear. But the parties seemed to be satisfied with the results of the negotiations. At least Mr. Kadyrov himself believes that now it is not he himself and his ministers who will be in international isolation, but the religious Chechen radicals and separatists who continue their armed struggle with financial support from abroad, mainly from the countries of the same the Arab East itself.
Mr. Kadyrov tried to convey to his interlocutors that the master in Chechnya had finally changed and everyone who wanted to help would have to deal with him. The presentation, in general, was a success - businessmen from the Arabian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Islamic Development Bank and several charitable organizations promised to intensify their assistance to the recovering Chechnya. In particular, the Islamic Development Bank is going to take care of Chechen education. To begin with, a group of experts will go to the republic to find out what exactly local schools need in the first place.
Actually, Saudi Arabia allocated money for the restoration of Chechnya before, but it was received by the federal center - and then distributed through the relevant ministries. This mechanism was not very convenient for Mr. Kadyrov, who is confident that he himself knows better how, how much and what exactly money should be spent on in Chechnya. Therefore, now he does not hide that he would like to develop “direct ties” with Saudi Arabia, albeit as a subject of the Russian Federation. To strengthen ties, it was decided to open a Chechen cultural center in Jeddah, the second largest city in the kingdom, next to the Russian consulate.
Mr. Kadyrov, in essence, is repeating the path of his Ichkerian predecessors: as the Vremya Novostey newspaper already wrote, Aslan Maskhadov also traveled to Riyadh shortly after his election in search of “direct connections.” True, Mr. Maskhadov felt much more at ease - in 1997, Chechnya did not want to look back at the federal center at all. It will not be easy for Akhmat Kadyrov, locked within the framework of official protocol and job responsibilities, to take away these “connections” from his predecessors and opponents. Ivan SUKHOV |
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