Strasbourg, September 21, 2001.

The position of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI) on the issue of the peaceful settlement of the Russo-Chechen conflict and the work of the Joint Working Group (JWG) has been presented in the Memorandum of our delegation presented to the June meeting of JWG and in the Statement by the Delegation of ChRI to the June 2001 Session of PACE.

As there have been no results of the work of JWG since then, and there have been no progress nor efforts made by the Russian side towards a peaceful solution of the Russo-Chechen conflict, our proposals and analysis are still in force.

We recall our position that the way to the peaceful solution of the Russo-Chechen conflict can be paved only by the bilateral cease-fire and the beginning of peace negotiations without preconditions between the two sides of the conflict: the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.

An investigation of the war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated in Chechnya should be conducted. An international involvement in investigation and prosecution is the only guarantee of justice and the objectivity and independence of investigation and the guarantee that the genocidal war against the Chechen people would never be conducted again by the Russian Federation.

We hope that the international community, including the Council of Europe, could contribute to help our country with the post-war revival of the economy and society. Although we obviously face a lot of challenges to be dealt with in a country devastated by two wars, those are the achievement of peace and the restoration of basic human rights guarantees which are the issues to be dealt with immediately, i.e. the issues on which JWG should concentrate first.

The economic and social revival of our country, the withdrawal of Russian troops with the subsequent disarmament of Chechen volunteers, and the international recognition of the Chechen State would be the best means to prevent possible radicalization of the young generation of Chechens which generally goes against the traditional Chechen culture.

In the light of the above the proposals outlined in the Memorandum by the Russian delegation sound more like preconditions and the intended bias of the topic of the peaceful end of the conflict towards the mimicing of socio-economic "improvements". Besides, the reference to the "will of the Chechen people" made in the Russian proposals cannot be read differently as a cynicysm, for it is made by the side whose forces have been systematically exterminating Chechen population and insulting its dignity and elementary human rights during two wars of the last decade.

In the very foundations of the work of the Join Working Group it should be understood that:

- there are two conflicting sides: Russian Federation and ChRI;

- the fact that one of the sides is present in JWG as a referee implies that no positive progress towards the settlement, taking the position of both conflicting sides into account, is possible within JWG. In this way JWG appears to be an instrument of indulgence of the war crimes perpetrated by a privileged side of the conflict and an instrument of its colonial policy;

- the ethnic Chechens appointed by the Russian side can be treated only as representatives of this side, as they are employed by it and represent exclusively its interests;

- the imitation of the "inter-Chechen consultations" within JWG and the attempted picturing of the war in Chechnya as an "internal Chechen conflict" is nothing but an attempt to escape from the responsibility for the monstrous human rights violations, war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated in Chechnya by the Russian side;

- if JWG is a consulting body set to pave a way to a peaceful settlement, rather than a public conference, it should consist of the representatives of the legitimate elected authorities of two conflicting sides, the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, and a third party intermediary, the Council of Europe;

- the legitimate authorities of Chechnya have been elected in 1997 and represent the current Parliament of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and the Government of the President Maskhadov.

Since its founding after the Session of PACE of January 2001 the JWG has not brought in any progress in improving the human rights situation in Chechnya, nor in approaching of a peace settlement. Instead it served as a pretext to exclude the Chechen issue from the agenda and the attention of the sessions of PACE, as well as of the European public, and also made the issue a specialization of a handful of PACE deputies. The initiatives it has presented so far, such as rewriting the Chechen Constitution or calling an extraconstitutionl body, represent an attempt to support restoration of a colonial rule of Russia in our country, that is the rule of the country which is responsible for massacring 20% of our population during the last decade.

Therefore, in view of

- the inadequacy of the work of JWG, particularly its explicit bias towards serving the Russian interests and covering up the daily abuses in Chechnya,

- the continued anti-Chechen war histeria in Russia,

- the continued brutality and criminal character of the action of Russian forces in Chechnya,

- and the most recent pronouncement by the Council of Europe High Commissioner on Human Rights Mr. A. Gil-Robles that "we have become convinced that Russia is a law-based state, and that it leaves not one crime unpunished," (Interfax, September 13) and this is in the context of Russian investigations of the crimes against civilians in Chechnya (!),

we regret to inform that the participation of the official delagation of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in the work of JWG, in its present form, and with its current attitudes, is impossible. We hope that the Concil of Europe will be able to change its biased attitude and we are open to the cooperation and discussions beyond the framework of the Lord Judd--Rogozin Joint Working Group.