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Putin agrees to siege probe
President Vladimir Putin has agreed to a parliamentary investigation in an apparent response to public criticism over last week's deadly school hostage siege. Previously Putin had only said an internal investigation would be held into the crisis, which left more than 330 hostages dead -- about half of them children. The proposal to form a commission was made Friday by Sergei Mironov, speaker of the upper house of Russia's parliament. The Federal Council largely follows Putin's lead. "We are thoroughly interested in receiving a complete, objective picture of the tragic events connected with the seizure of the hostages," Putin told Mironov in a meeting shown on Russian television, The Associated Press reported. According to reports of meetings Putin held with visiting Western scholars, the Kremlin leader had earlier ruled out a public inquiry in favor of the internal review. The parliamentary commission could constitute a relatively independent and public review of the crisis, AP said. Meanwhile, North Ossetia's parliament has approved a new prime minister to head the government, which was dismissed in the wake of angry demonstrations over authorities' failure to prevent the attack. Alan Boradzov, the republic's former transportation minister, was nominated by President Alexander Dzasokhov, who dismissed the regional government but did not step down himself, AP reported. Last week's siege in the North Ossetian town of Beslan, which ended in a deadly barrage of gunfire and explosions, has raised serious questions about the effectiveness of Russia's law-enforcement and security forces. On Thursday, officials said six of the roughly 30 terrorists who seized the school had been identified as being from Chechnya. Another four were from neighboring Ingushetia, officials told AP on condition of anonymity. Ingushetia is between North Ossetia and Chechnya, and the presence of Ingush raiders threatens to inflame long-standing tensions between Ingush and Ossetians. However, none of the 10 terrorists identified so far are Arabs, despite Moscow's assertion that about a third of the attackers were from Arab countries. Putin and Russian investigators have said about 10 of the attackers were Arabs, though authorities have not publicly provided evidence of the assertion, AP said. Officials have said the battle against rebels fighting for Chechen independence is part of the international war on terrorism, and Russia's foreign minister accused Western countries of displaying double standards by granting asylum to Chechen separatist figures. Sergey Lavrov's comments reflect Russian anger over what Moscow sees as the West's receptiveness to the rebels. Akhmed Zakayev is among those who Moscow would like to see extradited. An envoy for Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov, Zakayev was granted political asylum in the UK last year. The Kremlin also was angered when Washington granted asylum to Ilyas Akhmadov, who was foreign minister under Maskhadov during Chechnya's de-facto independence in the late 1990s. To underscore the point that Russia is fighting a wider war, Lavrov met Thursday with Rudolph Giuliani, who was mayor of New York City when the September 11, 2001 attacks took place. "When our Western partners urge us to rethink our policy and tactics in Chechnya, I would advise them not to interfere in Russian internal matters -- which they do by granting asylum to terrorists who are directly to blame for the tragedy of the Chechen people," Lavrov said after the meeting. Also Thursday, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder backed Putin's view that Russia is a victim of international terrorism. In a joint statement, Schroeder and Putin likened the school siege and other recent deadly attacks to September 11 and the Madrid train bombings. They said the school siege marked "a new dimension of the threat posed to all humankind by international terrorism." The Kremlin has rejected criticism that its Chechnya policies have bolstered support for the insurgents, instead claiming that international terrorist groups including al Qaeda are training the militants. The official death toll from the Beslan hostage siege -- in which terrorists took 1,200 people hostage -- rose to 329 on Thursday with the death of another victim, North Ossetia's Deputy Health Minister Teimuraz Revazov said. Officials have said 30 attackers and 11 members of the security forces also were killed. |
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