Some U.S. response on Grozny market/maternity clinic bombing. I would call this "fairly strong words" -- at least, compared to the sort of thing the Administration was saying during the last go-round.
US expresses alarm over Chechnya bombing
WASHINGTON, Oct 22 (AFP) - The United States expressed growing
alarm Friday over the fighting in Chechnya and said it was looking into "conflicting reports" from Russia about a bloody assault on civilians in Grozny.
"We have raised our concerns repeatedly in the last months about the
escalation and it is certainly troubling to see this kind of loss of
life," White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said when asked if the attack had heightened US fears.
Thursday, a missile attack on a market in Grozny killed at least 137
people, the bloodiest assault on Chechnya since the 1994-96 war.
The Russian mililtary first acknowledged a "special operation" had beenconducted in Chechnya to liquidate a suspected "terrorist arms bazaar," but premier Vladimir Putin then backed off any link to the carnage.
Lockhart said Washington and Moscow were in close consultation on the
matter, mostly through the US and Russian ambassadors, and that US
officials were trying to get to the bottom of the matter.
"There are conflicting reports and statements on the incident and we are working hard to to find out what the facts are," he said.
He called for an end to the fighting and said, "we will continue,
regardless of this incident, to make clear to the Russians and to both
parties that there is now way to find a purely military solution to this situation."
Lockhart noted that Clinton had recently written to Yeltsin about US
concerns but said there were no immediate plans for another
communication between the two leaders. He reiterated, however, that
officials from both countries were in constant contact.
"We have been in touch today and I expect there'd be other contacts.
We'll be talking to them on all diplomatic levels," he said.
In Moscow, a US official said Friday that Washington was concerned aboutthe conflict but only mildly reproached Moscow's operation to bring the rebel republic to heel.
Stability is the top US priority in the region, wracked by crime and a
wave of kidnappings since the end of Russia's disastrous 1994-96 bid to crush Chechnya's independence drive, which cost an estimated 80,000
lives.
Lockhart stressed the US policy line that Chechnya is part of the
Russian Federation and that the rebels were equally responsible for
halting the violence.
"We believe that the spread of violence in the region and the escalation of violence is contrary to everyone's interest except those who rely on violence to meet their political ends, and that includes the separatists," he said.
But in an apparent signal to Moscow, he added: "All parties here that
are involved should avoid indiscriminate and disproportionate use of
force."
The spokesman also warned that Moscow's struggle to develop could be
seriously undermined "if it permits a backlash against its citizens
because of their ethnicity or religion."
The US official in Moscow, who declined to be named, also said Chechen
leaders bore some responsibility for Moscow's decision to send ground
troops into the republic on October 1 to crush "terrorist" bases.
But he added that the bombing at the Grozny market was beyond
justification.
"They (the Russian government) are trying to make the case that they are not waging war against the Chechen people, but they've created 150,000 refugees," he said, commenting on a Russian air campaign launched September 5 which triggered the exodus.
Russian officials say 177,000 people have fled Chechnya.
The US official also signalled, however, that Washington understood thatMoscow was "not working in a benign environment," saying the Chechens had some "bad guys" who were not respecting international conventions.
Lockhart noted that Putin was in Helsinki with the EU chair "and hearing a message very much like the message that we've sent."
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