Moscow raps Washington for private Chechnya forum

MOSCOW, Sep 14 (Reuters) Moscow today accused Washington of allowing anti-Russian actions by permitting a North Caucasus conference to be held in the United States which a Chechen rebel representative attended.

The conference, held in Washington and attended by Chechen rebel envoy Mairbek Vachagayev, is organised by the Jamestown Foundation, a non-governmental organisation.

Russia's Foreign Ministry protested to the US embassy in Moscow, saying the event ''advocates terrorism and runs counter to US international obligations, including the clauses of the recently adopted global UN counter-terrorism strategy''.

''It was emphasised that the de facto connivance by the US authorities in anti-Russian actions causes bewilderment against the backdrop of our two countries' actively developing anti-terrorist partnership,'' the ministry said in a statement.

Russia, which has finally managed to take under control most of its tiny mountainous Chechnya province after more than a decade of war, has often hit out at the West for what it sees as double standards and a tacit acceptance of terrorism.

Vachagayev was the personal emissary of Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov, who was killed by Russian troops in March 2005.

In July this year, prominent Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev died in a truck blast described by Moscow as a successful operation by its security forces.

Basayev had claimed responsibility for a bloody school siege in the southern town of Beslan in 2004, in which more than 300 people died, more than half of them children.

Reuters VJ VP0123