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ICRC visits

Chechen prisoners:

US hails

Kremlin decision

WASHINGTON: The United States welcomed reports that the Kremlin will let Red Cross envoys visit Chechen prisoners, a US State Department spokesman said on Thursday.

Spokesman Jim Foley said he had not yet been informed directly of the decision by the Russian government.

But officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Thursday announced that Russian president-elect Vladimir Putin had agreed to allow the organisation to visit all detainees inside and outside Chechnya.

And the Interfax news agency on Thursday cited the Kremlin's top Chechnya adviser, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, as saying ICRC representatives would be allowed to visit detainees in Russian-run detention centers in Chechnya.

"If it's true, we are encouraged by it, we welcome it," Foley said. "We do hope that this meeting will facilitate the ICRC receiving unhindered access to all detainees related to the conflict in Chechnya."

"What we're encouraging are thoroughgoing steps in different areas, having to do with access by the international media" and the opening in the region of offices of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Foley said.

Western organisations have so far had only limited access to Russia's detention centers, or "filtration camps," where Chechen fighters are separated from civilians.

Since the start of the Chechen conflict, the United States has called on Russia to restrain its military activity and seek a political resolution to its conflict with Chechnya.ÑAFP