| Kadyrov and Maskhadov are drawing new borders of the republic Vladimir Putin received Akhmat Kadyrov on Friday for the first time since the latter was elected president of Chechnya. Mr. Kadyrov said that the main topic of the meeting was next year’s budget. In particular, the head of Chechnya would like to achieve increased funding for his devastated region. According to him, expenses in the coming year cannot be compared with the current ones, and the current ones cannot be compared with last year’s: “Last year we had neither a president nor a State Council, parliamentary elections are planned for next year. We are starting everything from scratch.”
To make it more convenient to start from scratch again, Mr. Kadyrov wants to achieve the speedy signing of an agreement with the federal center. The president of the republic tried not to use words about “special economic status,” which clearly offends the ears not only of Chechnya’s Caucasian neighbors, but also of representatives of the federal government. He simply recalled that Vladimir Putin himself promised Chechnya “the broadest economic powers.” The basis of Kadyrov’s “broadest” powers is the reform of the distribution of “oil” revenues, which are now mainly received by Rosneft, and the suspension of tax payments to the federal budget for the next few years. “I don’t want to give anything to the federal center at all,” the head of Chechnya stated bluntly. According to the Vremya Novostei newspaper, the Chechen leader hopes to sign an agreement with Moscow before the end of this year, but work on its preparation may take longer: after all, the development commission was headed by the retired chief of the presidential administration, Alexander Voloshin. And Rosneft does not yet share the ideas of Chechen officials regarding the division of oil money.
Mr. Kadyrov also raised another controversial issue in the Kremlin - the withdrawal of surplus troops from Chechnya. Some of the Russian military are confident that the current size of the federal group (about 78 thousand people) is optimal. Kadyrov wants to achieve a complete transfer of functions to restore order to the local police and is confident that until the military leaves, violations of human rights and disappearances of people in the republic will continue. In his opinion, there are 4-5 irreconcilable separatists left - these are the most famous resistance leaders, such as Aslan Maskhadov or Shamil Basayev. “I live in Chechnya, I know what forces we have and what forces are on the other side. There are no resistance forces, there are separate groups that run through the mountains.” To cope with such groups, the President of Chechnya believes, the police are quite enough. Mr. Kadyrov does not exclude the possibility of negotiations with Maskhadov - if the latter decides to surrender and stand trial.
The Russian military, however, immediately responded to such peace initiatives of Mr. Kadyrov. A representative of the regional operational headquarters of the counter-terrorism operation, Ilya Shabalkin, said yesterday that, according to operational data, Aslan Maskhadov is not going to surrender at all, but to create an “independent mountainous Ichkeria” in the south of Chechnya, separate from the flat territory of the republic and, possibly, part of Russia as a autonomy. “The federal center will not only disagree with such a proposal, but will not even discuss it,” Mr. Shabalkin assured.
By the way, there is no longer any doubt that plans to draw a new administrative border for Chechnya exist “on this side of the front line.” Akhmat Kadyrov once again confirmed that he is a supporter of the unification of Chechnya with Ingushetia. “This is not for Kadyrov or Zyazikov to decide, this will have to be decided by the people in a referendum,” said the President of Chechnya, answering a question from the Vremya Novostei newspaper. - I am for unification, I think it will happen, another question is when. Now it is unlikely that anyone will want to unite with Chechnya. But life is not sweet in Ingushetia either.” Ivan SUKHOV |
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