GERMANY, TOO, WELCOMES CHECHEN REPRESENTATIVES.

Writing in the pro-Putin website Strana.ru on February 8, journalist Viktor Cherepakhin assailed the warm reception recently accorded in Germany to Said Abumuslimov, “one more ‘right hand’ of Aslan Maskhadov.” The German organization, Society for Foreign Policy, Cherepakhin noted, which has close ties to the German Foreign Ministry, and which recently founded a Chechen Bureau in Berlin, arranged for Abumuslimov to meet with members of the Bundestag and with “the leader of Germany’s parliamentary faction in the Council of Europe, Rudolf Bindig.” The separatist emissary was also invited to give several public lectures and was designated the keynote speaker of a conference organized by the Society for Foreign Policy scheduled to be held in Berlin on February 11.