Russia Gets Back Council of Europe Voting Rights

Russia on Thursday won back its voting rights in the Council of Europe, nine months after they were suspended for alleged gross violations of human rights by troops in rebel Chechnya.

The democracy body's Parliamentary Assembly voted by 88 to 20 with 11 abstentions to restore Moscow's privileges.

At the same time, the assembly said it regretted that Russia had not made more progress on human rights and the search for a political solution to the conflict in the restive region.

In Moscow, the foreign ministry welcomed the decision and said it could lead to better cooperation between Russia and the Council of Europe.

"The delegates (of the Assembly) realistically looked at the situation and understood that Russia is not a pupil who can be sent out from the classroom and that cooperation with it...will yield a better result than confrontation," Interfax news agency quoted the foreign ministry as saying.

"The restoration of our voting rights enhances opportunities for cooperation between Russia and the Assembly," the Foreign Ministry was quoted as saying. "This is exactly what both sides are interested in."

The assembly resolution included provisions to set up a joint working group of the assembly and the Russian State Duma (lower house) to monitor the extent to which Russia enacts Council recommendations in the North Caucasus region.

Hours before the vote, Russia allocated just under $500 million in new funds to restore the shattered economy and entrench civilian rule in Chechnya, where Russian forces launched an offensive in September 1999 to crush separatists.

The Council, which numbers 43 member states following the admission of former Soviet republics Armenia and Azerbaijan earlier on Thursday, has little clout in Europe.

But pronouncements by its assembly are viewed with great importance in Russia and the organisation is seen as an authority on rights and democracy in eastern Europe.

Frustrated by the failure of European governments to put pressure on Russia to halt the fighting in Chechnya, the Council's parliamentary assembly suspended Russia's voting rights last April.

Thursday's vote followed a two-day visit to Chechnya by a Council of Europe delegation this month, the latest of several visits to evaluate allegations of widespread rights abuses that Russia has long denied.

Briton Lord Judd, explaining the assembly's vote, said the alternative to Thursday's decision was "to sit with our arms crossed and do nothing."

President Vladimir Putin has ordered a reduction in Russian forces, which nominally control most Chechen territory after fighting that flattened many towns. Russian troops still fall prey almost daily to rebel ambushes.

Before Thursday's decision, the human rights group Amnesty International spoke of daily abuses and said the Council had "an obligation to remind the Russian authorities that no country is above the law".

The new US administration of US President George W. Bush also issued a fresh denunciation of the Russian military campaign on Wednesday.

"The fighting has continued and there are continuing and credible reports of humanitarian abuses against the civilian population by Russian troops," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.






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