Chechen Hostage Takers Urge Talks, Refuse to Release Foreigners

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, October 24, 2002

Chechen Hostage Takers Urge Talks, Refuse to Release Foreigners

Chechen hostage takers have urged the International Red Cross and Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) to send representatives for talks, Interfax news agency reported Thursday.

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Chechen hostage takers have urged the International Red Cross and Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) to send representatives for talks, Interfax news agency reported Thursday.

A female hostage, Maria Shokolnikova, told Moscow-based radio "Echo Moscow" that the gunmen insisted that no Russians were allowed to join the talks as representatives of the two organizations. They also demanded that there be representatives for foreign hostages.

She said that among the hundreds of hostages, there are 62 foreign nationals, who are from more than 10 countries including 21 from Ukraine.

The Austrian ambassador to Russia announced earlier that the armed Chechens were ready to release all foreign hostages soon.

Officials from the Austrian, Australian and Dutch embassies in Moscow have already arrived at the scene, said a spokesman for the headquarters set up to secure the release of the hostages.

The German embassy in Moscow has confirmed that there were at least three German citizens among the hostages, and the British embassy said that three Britons were among them.

The US embassy said it could not confirm reports that one American citizen was among the hostages.

Chechen hostage-takers refuse to release foreigners

Chechen hostage-takers refused to release foreign hostages, Alexander Machevsky, an aide of the Kremlin, said Thursday.

"They will not release the foreigners, because the initial agreements have been thwarted," Machevsky was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying.

The agreements fell through after diplomats of the countries whose citizens have been taken hostage failed to arrive by 9:00 a.m. (Moscow time) set by the rebels, he said.

The terrorists are setting new conditions for the release of foreigners, Machevsky said.

The terrorists permitted Russian television reporters to enter the theater hall where between 500 and 700 people that they took hostage Wednesday night remained.

They demanded talks with representatives of the International Red Cross and Doctors without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres), one female hostage, Maria Shokolnikova, told Moscow-based Echo radio by telephone.

She said that the terrorists had held discussions with AslanbekAslakhanov, the State Duma member representing Chechnya, but theirtalks produced no results.

Michel Minning, head of the delegation of the International RedCross, has arrived at the scene, but representatives of the Medecins Sans Frontieres were in North Kavkaz and not able to arrive in Moscow soon, Interfax reported.

In a live broadcast on Russia's ORT television, Moscow Major Urey Luzhkov said the terrorists demanded talks only with foreign citizens.

Forty to 50 Chechen terrorists, including some women, entered the theater hall in downtown Moscow on Dubrovka Street on Wednesday evening, demanding an end to the Chechen war.

The hostage-taking raid in the theater hall in Moscow is believed to be the most audacious one by Chechen rebels since the first Chechen war between 1994 and 1996.

In 1995, about 120 people were killed after rebels seized a hospital in the southern Russian town of Budennovsk. In 1996, a group of Chechen rebels took more than 2,000 hostages in a raid on the Dagestani town of Kizlyar.

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