MOSCOW. Sept 25 (Interfax-AVN) - Russian special presidential human rights envoy to Chechnya Vladimir Kalamanov has supported President Vladimir Putin's address on the Chechnya issue and said he hopes it will be "properly perceived by European parliamentarians in PACE."
At the same time, Kalamanov said in an interview with Interfax that he has no confidence in this. "Judging by what I heard from our delegation members in Strasbourg, double standards are practiced in PACE, and if some deputies manage to abandon them, I would only be glad," Kalamanov said.
PACE "is driving itself into a deadlock" in trying to pursue "an ostrich policy," consistently ignoring changes in the world, and disregarding the emergence of new threats, Kalamanov said. "They keep trying to qualify this or that action from the position of double standards, for instance, terrorism," he added.
Kalamanov said he is not inclined to view Putin's demand concerning the 72 hours given to rebels to lay down their arms as an ultimatum. "The president has given a last chance to those who accidentally or through some illusions found themselves on the opposing side. Putin's statement is an answer to many questions asked about Chechnya and about what is to be done now," Kalamanov said.
International terrorism has challenged the international community, and Russia was the first to sustain this blow and fight alone against terrorism, Kalamanov said. "The president has made a constructive statement, and it is just impossible not to notice this approach. At the same time, the statement does not contain any hint about a compromise with terrorists. And this is the only way to combat them," he said.
Kalamanov said he does not think federal troops will act tougher after Putin's statement and pointed to the position of the military and civil prosecutors in Chechnya. "There are courts working in the republic, and our special office provides immediate assistance to people, and this gives certain guarantees that the army will not violate the law systematically and on a large scale," Kalamanov said.
Federal authorities have made serious successes in Chechnya in the past year, the most important of them being "the army's self-control," he said.