Global Policy Forum

By Kim Gamel

Russia took its case for expanding the global war against terrorism to the United Nations, proposing that the UN Security Council establish a new list of terror suspects who would be subject to extradition. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who have denounced Western countries for granting asylum to Chechen leaders Russia has linked to violence, called on the international community to reject double-standards in defining terrorists. "Those who slaughtered children in Beslan and hijacked airplanes to attack America are creatures of the same breed," he said in a forceful speech to the UN General Assembly on Thursday. "Harboring terrorists, their henchmen and sponsors undermines the unity and mutual trust of parties to the anti-terrorist front, serves as a justification for their actions and actually encourages them to commit similar crimes in other countries," he said. Russia on Friday circulated a draft UN Security Council resolution that stresses the need for the 15 member nations to "cooperate fully" in tracking down the perpetrators and organizers of terrorist attacks.

The proposed text asks the committee monitoring what governments are doing to fight terrorism to consider how to create a new list of "individuals, groups and entities involved in or associated with terrorist activities." The list would be separate from that of the al-Qaida/Taliban sanctions committee, drawn up in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, according to the text. The draft resolution also asks the committee to consider punishments against people on the list, including travel bans, freezing financial assets, and "expedited extradition of anyone named in the list." British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw supported the initiative and said Britain would "work closely" with Russia on the wording to prevent terrorists from abusing asylum status. "We cannot let terrorists exploit a protection designed for the persecuted, not the persecutors," he said. But the draft was short on specifics, and Straw stressed that neither Britain nor any other European Union nation would return suspects to face the death penalty. China said it backed the resolution. The United States was reviewing it, said Secretary of State Colin Powell, who met with Lavrov for about 30 minutes on Thursday. "I told him we had an open mind and wanted to look at it," Powell told The New York Times on Friday. "But they have a concern over an individual who is being asylumed here, and that's troubling. "They want to create circumstances which would allow him to be expelled." His reference was apparently to Ilyas Akhmadov, whom Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov named as his foreign minister while he was Chechnya's president in 1999 and who received U.S. asylum in August. Powell said he had told Lavrov that the case was not one for the State Department but for the judicial system. "That's a judicial matter, and that's the way this country works," Powell said. In answer to a question, Powell said the Russian proposal might offer possibilities for the United States to add to the UN blacklist the Middle Eastern groups that it holds responsible for terror attacks on Israel, The New York Times reported. Lavrov did not single out any countries in his speech, but Russia was particularly upset by Britain's granting of refugee status to Akhmed Zakayev, an envoy for Maskhadov, and U.S. asylum for Akhmadov.

The draft resolution calls for cooperation between nations to find and prosecute terrorists. It said terror attacks cannot be justified by "consideration of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other similar nature." The document asks UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to submit his views on establishing a fund to compensate the terror victims. It could be financed by assets confiscated from terrorist organizations, the proposal said. Russia also suggested drafting conventions on international terrorism. UN anti-terrorism sanctions require all 191 UN member states to impose a travel ban and arms embargo against a list of those linked to the Taliban or al-Qaida and to freeze their financial assets. The counterterrorism committee is monitoring a resolution adopted shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that requires all nations to stop supporting, financing and providing sanctuary to terrorists. Lavrov said the world was facing a turning point and needs to recognize the "true nature of international terrorism." "Through their actions throughout the world, the terrorists have once and for all placed themselves in opposition to civilized mankind," he said.