President Clinton led world leaders yesterday in blasting Russian leader Boris Yeltsin for Moscow’s bloody crackdown in Chechnya.
Yeltsin fired back with angry words, and left Istanbul early, but he also agreed to permit an outside look at the breakaway region.
“You have no right to criticize Russia for Chechnya,” Yeltsin told presidents and prime ministers at a summit of the 54-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
“There will be no negotiations with bandits and murderers,” he declared.
As the leaders sat around an oval table, Clinton criticized Yeltsin for “an endless cycle of violence” against civilians in Chechnya.
French President Jacques Chirac called Russia’s air and ground assaults “a tragic error.”
And German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said war is “no way to eliminate terrorists.”
Yeltsin said he was not interested in “reproaches or sermonizing.”
But he quietly agreed to allow OSCE Chairman Knut Vollebaek of Norway to visit Chechnya, although no date was set. Moscow had previously refused to allow such a visit.
“I’m not going to oversell this,” Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said. But she said Yeltsin’s concession was “a foot in the door” for a more extensive OSCE mission.
Yeltsin left Istanbul before today’s concluding sessions, but National Security Adviser Sandy Berger said the Russian leader “was not stomping out of the room.”