VILNIUS DENIES MOSCOW.

On November 5, it was reported that “Russia today urged Lithuania to shut down a Chechen cultural center in Vilnius, but the foreign minister turned down the request,” pointing out that “the center is a public institution, established in accordance with Lithuanian legislation and headed by a Lithuanian citizen” (RFE-RL, November 5). On the following day, November 6, RIA Novosti wrote that: “Poland refuses to close Chechen information centers. ‘So far, Chechen information centers are keeping within the law, and we have no grounds to close them,’ Poland’s President Alexander Kwasniewski in Warsaw said…. This [statement] followed after the Polish ambassador in Moscow was handed a note demanding closure of the Chechen information center.”