Bombings show West was wrong to support Chechnya militants: Putin
Source: Agencies |
April 26, 2013, Friday
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THE Boston bombings should spur stronger security cooperation between Moscow and Washington, Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday, adding that they also show that the West was wrong in supporting militants in Chechnya.
Putin said that "this tragedy should push us closer in fending off common threats, including terrorism, which is one of the biggest and most dangerous of them."
The two brothers accused of the Boston bombings are ethnic Chechens who had lived in the US for more than a decade.
Putin warned against trying to find the roots for the Boston tragedy in the suffering endured by the Chechen people, particularly in mass deportations of Chechens to Siberia and Central Asia on Soviet leader Josef Stalin's orders. "The cause isn't in their ethnicity or religion, it's in their extremist sentiments," he said.
Speaking in an annual call-in show on state television, Putin criticized the West for refusing to declare Chechen militants terrorists and for offering them political and financial assistance in the past.
"I always felt indignation when our Western partners and Western media were referring to terrorists who conducted brutal and bloody crimes on the territory of Russia as rebels," Putin said.
The US has criticized "rights abuses" by Russian troops during the two separatist wars since 1994, which spawned an Islamic insurgency that has engulfed the entire region. It also provided humanitarian aid to the region during the high points of fighting there in the 1990s and the early 2000s.
Russia has repeatedly claimed that rebels in Chechnya have close links with al-Qaida.
Putin said the West should have cooperated more actively with Russia in combatting terror.
"We always have said that we shouldn't limit ourselves to declarations about terrorism being a common threat and engage in closer cooperation," he said. "Now these two criminals have proven the correctness of our thesis."
"If we truly join our efforts together, we will not allow these strikes and suffer such losses," he said of the bombings in the four-and-three-quarter-hour phone-in.
When a journalist asked whether a clampdown on opponents since his return to the Kremlin last May echoed the repressions of Stalin, Putin denied the accusation, but told the editor that Russia needed order and discipline.
Former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin also took him to task over the country's slide towards recession but Putin dismissed him jokingly as a "slacker."
There was even one written question seeking advice on how to handle a wayward son. This prompted a laugh.
Putin also played down suggestions that he disagrees with his government over economic policy and show he will not respond to calls to dismiss President Dmitry Medvedev.
He said: "There is no division between the government and the president, or the presidential administration on the economy. The people have only been in their jobs about a year."
Putin said that "this tragedy should push us closer in fending off common threats, including terrorism, which is one of the biggest and most dangerous of them."
The two brothers accused of the Boston bombings are ethnic Chechens who had lived in the US for more than a decade.
Putin warned against trying to find the roots for the Boston tragedy in the suffering endured by the Chechen people, particularly in mass deportations of Chechens to Siberia and Central Asia on Soviet leader Josef Stalin's orders. "The cause isn't in their ethnicity or religion, it's in their extremist sentiments," he said.
Speaking in an annual call-in show on state television, Putin criticized the West for refusing to declare Chechen militants terrorists and for offering them political and financial assistance in the past.
"I always felt indignation when our Western partners and Western media were referring to terrorists who conducted brutal and bloody crimes on the territory of Russia as rebels," Putin said.
The US has criticized "rights abuses" by Russian troops during the two separatist wars since 1994, which spawned an Islamic insurgency that has engulfed the entire region. It also provided humanitarian aid to the region during the high points of fighting there in the 1990s and the early 2000s.
Russia has repeatedly claimed that rebels in Chechnya have close links with al-Qaida.
Putin said the West should have cooperated more actively with Russia in combatting terror.
"We always have said that we shouldn't limit ourselves to declarations about terrorism being a common threat and engage in closer cooperation," he said. "Now these two criminals have proven the correctness of our thesis."
"If we truly join our efforts together, we will not allow these strikes and suffer such losses," he said of the bombings in the four-and-three-quarter-hour phone-in.
When a journalist asked whether a clampdown on opponents since his return to the Kremlin last May echoed the repressions of Stalin, Putin denied the accusation, but told the editor that Russia needed order and discipline.
Former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin also took him to task over the country's slide towards recession but Putin dismissed him jokingly as a "slacker."
There was even one written question seeking advice on how to handle a wayward son. This prompted a laugh.
Putin also played down suggestions that he disagrees with his government over economic policy and show he will not respond to calls to dismiss President Dmitry Medvedev.
He said: "There is no division between the government and the president, or the presidential administration on the economy. The people have only been in their jobs about a year."
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