INTERVIEW OF ALEXANDER YAKOVENKO, OFFICIAL SPOKESMAN OF RUSSIA'S MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, WITH RIA NOVOSTI A PROPOS AN UPCOMING OFFICIAL UN SECURITY COUNCIL SESSION ON ANTI-TERROR PROBLEMS AT THE FOREIGN-MINISTERIAL LEVEL IN NEW YORK CITY
RIA NOVOSTI. Please tell us about the upcoming UN Security Council session on anti-terror problems, and why it is convened.
YAKOVENKO. An official UN Security Council session on anti-terror problems will gather in New York City, January 20, at a foreign-ministerial level. It is being convened mainly because terrorism is an extremely topical issue in contemporary international relations.
A wave of terror acts swept many parts of the world toward last year's end to graphically prove a global scope of the terror danger, which defies geographic frontiers.
The practice of terror acts to take a great many lives is spreading far and wide. Suicide terrorists are trained, and new hostage-taking techniques drilled for political intimidation. An atmosphere of fear is setting in, and the community becomes disorganised.
Blasts thundered on Chechnya's republican government premises in Grozny, December 27, 2002. Several terror acts were prevented shortly before in France, prepared by Islamic extremists with an experience of Chechen war. All that dispels the last remaining doubts concerning Chechen extremists as active members of the international terrorist camp. The world has received another powerful warning-anti-terror efforts must be resolutely consolidated.
Even a country superstrong in the military respect cannot stand up against the Terrorist International singlehanded. Unilateral use of force outside the international law-that is, without an UN Security Council sanction-can only undermine regional and even global stability, and make the terrorist threat even worse.
RIA NOVOSTI. How is Russia cooperating with the United Nations to repulse international terrorism?
YAKOVENKO. We are firmly supporting the United Nations in its central coordinating part on the international anti-terror cause. We are actively working for a global network to be established under the UN aegis on a firm international legal basis against terrorism and the latest related threats and challenges.
Russia initiated a draft resolution on, Response to Global Threats and Challenges, to launch practical efforts toward such a network. The UN General Assembly achieved consensus on the issue and approved the draft, December 16, 2002. Now is the time for teamwork to implement the initiative.
Russia resolutely insists on all countries to fully comply with UN Security Council resolution No. 1373 and other Security Council decisions made with active Russian participation following the tragedies in the USA, Indonesia, Kenya and Russia.
A Counter-Terror Committee of the UN Security Council was established in compliance with resolution No. 1373. This unique agency is working successfully to monitor particular countries' compliance with their anti-terror obligations. As deputy chair country of the committee, Russia will do everything possible, just as before, to guarantee Committee efficiency in conformity with its mandate.
As we see it, top priorities of Committee work include such essential missions as assisting interested countries to strengthen their anti-terror potential, and closer alliance with regional and subregional organisations, among them the Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
RIA NOVOSTI. International terrorism is an involved problem. How can it be solved? What is the Russian opinion?
YAKOVENKO. The global community is to concentrate on blueprinting strategies to eradicate the causes of terrorism. All-embracing efforts combining political, diplomatic, economic and humanitarian action are necessary to put an end to terrorism.
It is a topical task to guarantee steady progress of all parts of the world, and enhance the social content of globalisation. Unjustified economic and political isolation of certain countries proceeding from arbitrary criteria, when their regimes do not please someone outside, and their ousting from the network of international contacts are among terror-breeding factors, and demand close attention and practical counteraction.
Combat against poverty, and the formation of a just and reliable international economic and financial system also promise to buttress international efforts for an effective strategy to give a rebuff to terrorism and other threats and challenges which face the human race in the 21st century.
Hard tasks to protect civilians arise as terrorism is gaining momentum. We share that point of the UN Secretary General. Anti-terror struggle must proceed within the limits of human rights, and go hand-in-hand with promotion of the supremacy of the law and democratic institutions. At the same time, it is every country's duty to fight terrorism uncompromisingly as it blatantly tramples on the right to live and other basic human rights.
The international agenda includes the elaboration of the human right to receive protection from terrorism. It does not mean that established human rights are to be revised-their content is merely to be extended.
Russia advanced an initiative at the 57th session of the UN General Assembly to draft, under the UN aegis, a code of human rights of safety from terrorism. Such a code can make a stride forward to that goal. The code is to proceed from the principle of universal pledges by all countries to guarantee human safety from terrorism and related encroachments. We hope the initiative will find support and be implemented in team efforts.
Genuine protection of democratic values and human rights and freedoms is absolutely incompatible with direct or mediated support of bandits who blatantly trample those principles down.
We attach great importance to streamlining the patterns and agencies of reciprocal legal assistance, including for the extradition of persons involved in terrorist crimes. We cannot put up with the current situation when certain forces are out to whitewash Chechen terrorists and hamper justice. Double standards in that field boil down to encouragement of terrorists for more crimes.
It is an essential goal to establish an united international legal environment of anti-terror combat, including the elaboration of an universally recognised definition of terrorism. All countries must join the acting international anti-terror conventions as soon as possible. The United Nations is entitled to active assistance as it is finishing the drafts of an international convention on efforts against nuclear terror acts-initiated by Russia, and a comprehensive convention on efforts against international terrorism, on Indian initiative.
RIA NOVOSTI. What is Russia doing to prevent the terrorist danger?
YAKOVENKO. The federal President signed, July 11, 2002, a law to ratify the international convention of 1999 on efforts against terrorist financing.
Russia is signatory to eleven out of a total twelve comprehensive anti-terror conventions. On December 21, 2002, the State Duma, [parliament's lower house], adopted a federal bill to ratify the Shanghai convention on efforts against terrorism, separatism and extremism. The Federation Council, [upper house], approved it, December 27.
We are working on to improve the Russian legislation to enhance the effect of efforts against the latest terrorist threats in conformity with international legal standards-in particular, UN Security Council resolution No. 1373.
A federal law entered into force, December 1, 2002, to amend and supplement the federal law against money-laundering, which stipulates norms against terrorist financing.
Russia has been stricken out of the FATF black list to recognise its progress.
There are many legislative improvements to monitor illegal migrations, which ever more often bring new blood to terrorist structures, organised crime and drug traffic. Related amendments of the federal law on Russia's state frontier have been approved.
Essential federal laws have been passed to regulate exit/entry and aliens' legal status in Russia. On December 19, 2002, the federal government approved, on the whole, a draft concept of regulating migration processes in the Russian Federation.
