GUDERMES. Nov 27 (Interfax-AVN) - A recent amnesty has resulted in the decrease in the number of active members of illegal armed groups, Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov said.
"A total of 386 people have surrendered since the beginning of the year in Chechnya, with 279 laying down arms since the day National Anti-Terrorist Committee Chairman Nikolai Patrushev made his appeal. The figure has been standing at 425 for the North Caucasian region in general," the prime minister said at a meeting with head of a PACE delegation Andreas Gross in Gudermes.
The Chechen authorities "have believed from the first day that serious attention should be paid to explaining the fatality of the chosen path to militants, and time has shown that this was a correct decision," he said.
Thanks to the amnesty policy, "7,000 people have been able to return [to peaceful life]," he said. "They are working in the Chechen Interior Ministry, the government and other agencies, they and sometimes hold key positions," the Chechen premier said.
Those who burnt their bridges are staying in woods today, Kadyrov said. "These are some 50 - 80 Chechen residents, several dozens of foreigners, including Turks, Arabs and others. Their number is falling everyday thanks to successful actions by both federal agencies and local law enforcement bodies," the prime minister said.