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No reduction of federal troops in Chechnya - deputy minister

RIA Novosti

29/03/2007 14:15 ROSTOV-ON-DON, March 29 (RIA Novosti) - A contingent of Russian federal troops stationed in Chechnya will not be reduced until all armed groups are eliminated in the troubled North Caucasus republic, a Russian interior deputy minister said Thursday.

The statement, made by Colonel-General Arkady Yedelev, contradicts information from Commander-in-Chief of the Interior Ministry Troops Colonel-General Nikolai Rogozhkin, who said Tuesday that as the situation in Chechnya stabilizes, the number of Interior Ministry troops in the republic, currently totaling 22,000, will gradually drop.

"According to some estimates 80% of armed groups [in Chechnya] consist of foreign mercenaries," Yedelev said. "That is why the reduction [of federal troops] is out of the question until they [the mercenaries] are neutralized... and the issue of inspiring international terrorism in Russia is resolved."

Yedelev already said last week that foreign mercenaries, trained in Bosnia, infiltrate the North Caucasus republics via Ukraine.

"We have concrete facts of [North Caucasus] penetration by mercenaries from Bosnia, who have been trained there," he said.

Although the active phase of the North Caucasus antiterrorism campaign officially ended in 2001, periodic bombings and clashes between gunmen and federal troops still disrupt Chechnya and nearby regions, including Daghestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, and Karachayevo-Circassia.

Rogozhkin said Tuesday that "today some 70-90 armed groups, consisting of 600-800 militants, are still operating on the territory of Chechnya."

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov promised last week that all illegal armed groups in his republic will be eliminated within two months.

Kadyrov, elected Chechen president earlier this year, said that "the counterterrorism operation in the region has been completed and today we are fighting criminal [not terrorist] elements in the Republic of Chechnya."