Chechnya Wins Right to Open Offices in Europe

By Nikolaus von Twickel

The Foreign Ministry confirmed Friday that Chechnya may set up representative offices abroad, but stressed that they should be called information centers and would operate strictly on a regional governmental level.

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov raised questions about his foreign policy ambitions earlier in the week when he announced that his administration had received permission from Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to open representative offices in European countries.

The Chechen government later backtracked on the announcement, but Foreign Ministry spokesman Igor Lyakin-Frolov said Friday that Lavrov had indeed approved a Chechen request to open representative offices.

“Lavrov gave [Chechnya] permission to open such information centers, but they will have to work with the provincial governments of their host countries,” Lyakin-Frolov told The Moscow Times.

He explained that the centers would have to sign agreements with regional governments that correspond to Chechnya’s status as a subject of the Russian Federation. “They will have limited functions because they must not take on governmental functions,” he said.

Kadyrov said Thursday that Chechnya would open representative offices in six European countries — Germany, Austria, Denmark, Belgium, Poland and France — in an attempt to convince the sizable Chechen migrant communities living there to return to their homeland.

Human rights groups have voiced concern over these plans, saying many Chechens fled their homeland precisely because they fear persecution by Kadyrov.

Asked whether homecoming policies were also sanctioned as part of the centers’ work, Lyakin Frolov said “of course.”

Kadyrov said he also would consider setting up a satellite TV channel especially for Chechen refugees.

“Among them are some who live in difficult conditions. We hear that many cannot even buy TV sets or a satellite dish. We need to help those citizens. They must see the changes in our republic, and they must know that we are happy to assist them to return,” Kadyrov said in an interview published on Chechnyatoday.ru, a web site run by his Information Ministry.

Diplomats in the countries where Chechnya wants to open information centers have expressed confusion about the plans and asked the Foreign Ministry for clarification. One diplomat said Saturday that his embassy had still not received an official reply from the Foreign Ministry.

A French Embassy spokesman confirmed Sunday that early talks had been held with a Chechen official about the opening of a representative office in France.

Tatarstan, which negotiated wide-ranging autonomy from Moscow in the 1990s, has representative offices in 11 countries, while Bashkortostan has offices in Austria, Turkey and Kazakhstan.