MOSCOW. Aug 27 (Interfax-AVN) - Russia's permanent representative to the United Nations dismissed a suggestion that his country had been using double standards by denying secession to Chechnya but recognizing the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Russia has never deprived Chechnya of its autonomous status, Vitaly Churkin told a news conference in New York on Tuesday that was reported by Russian television channel Vesti 24.
On the other hand, Georgia scrapped the autonomy of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Churkin said.
Nor has Russia ever tried to exterminate ethnic Chechens, he said, accusing Georgia's former president Zviad Gamsakhurdia and incumbent President Mikheil Saakashvili of genocidal policies in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Finally, Churkin said, neither Abkhazia nor South Ossetia have been a source of terrorism for Georgia.
The representative said South Ossetia and Abkhazia had been seeking independence for nearly two decades and that Georgia's armed attack on South Ossetia earlier this month had made this drive for independence irreversible.