First Deputy Head of the Yabloko faction in the State Duma Sergei Ivanenko said in an interview with journalists on November 19, 2001 that Yabloko regarded positively the start of the negotiations between the Plenipotentiary of the President of the RF in the Southern District Viktor Kazantsev and representative of Aslan Maskhadov Akhmed Zakayev.

Ivanenko reminded the press that two years ago Yabloko had set forth proposals on such political negotiations, when Grigory Yavlinsky made on November 9, 1999, “his well-known declaration on the need to stop broad-scale military actions and begin negotiations with the fighters”. “For this declaration Yabloko received so much “criticism” that can be termed in no other way than slighting,” noted Ivanenko. According to Ivanenko, “the fact that today, two years later, every key politician is talking about the start of the negotiations and the beginning of the political process there proves that we were right.” “In a certain sense this is the result of our work – to tell the truth not only when it is popular, admired and approved,” stated Ivanenko.

According to Ivanenko, the negotiating process with Chechen militants will be protracted and complicated, “especially considering the bloody experience of the contact between the federal centre and Chechnya.” In any case Yabloko is convinced of the importance that this process has begun.

Ivanenko also thinks that “it is impossible to restrict oneself to such political negotiations along one line, one direction only and only with the same protagonists.” According to Ivanenko, “all the other meaningful political forces both in Russia and Chechnya should also be involved in this process.” Yabloko is ready politically to facilitate and participate in such negotiations,” noted the Deputy Head of the Yabloko faction.

Ivanenko also assumed that the key issue on the threshold of negotiations was the problem of “stopping the guerrilla-terrorist war and transferring to normal life.” “I think that it is inadmissible today to set any ultimatum, such as laying down weapons within 72 hours,” noted Ivanenko. “It is difficult to imagine that a long queue could form in Chechnya tomorrow to lay down weapons.” According to Ivanenko, this requires very subtle work, not public work, as “the parties do not normally make known to the public at large their positions on the threshold of negotiations.”

At the same time, the Deputy Head of the faction said that they might already at yesterday’s meeting between Kazantsev and Zakayev have touched upon the problem “of personal prospects for certain people, including Maskhadov.”

See also:

War in Chechnya