Foreign Correspondence

[CoalTrain]

Russia Introduces Terror Resolution



UNITED NATIONS - Russia introduced a draft resolution Monday calling for a new list of suspects who would be subject to extradition in a stepped-up global campaign against terrorism. China welcomed it but Pakistan and other Security Council members eyed the proposal with caution.



Russia, which has denounced Western countries for granting asylum to Chechen leaders it has linked to violence, has been pushing the United Nations (news - web sites) to take tougher action against terrorists and circulated the draft last week.


The Russian draft stresses the need for the 15 council nations to "cooperate fully" in tracking down the perpetrators and organizers of terrorist attacks.


It asks the committee monitoring what governments are doing to fight terrorism to consider how to draw up a new list of "individuals, groups and entities involved in or associated with terrorist activities." It also asks the committee to consider the "expedited extradition of anyone named in the list."


Russian U.N. Ambassador Andrey Denisov said council experts would meet Wednesday to consider the draft, and he was hoping for a vote later this week or early next week.


"We understand that some countries have some problems, not with counterterrorism activity, of course, because we are united in it -- but with definitions of terrorism, first, and the specific balance between international law and national legislative systems" with regard to asylum, extradition and the list of suspects, he said.


U.S. deputy Ambassador Stuart Holliday said U.S. legal experts were studying the draft.


Pakistan's U.N. Ambassador Munir Akram said seeking to put a definition of terrorism in the draft, drawing up a list of terror suspects, and the issue of asylum are "going to be difficult."


"Our feeling would be that the Russians would do well to focus on the terrorist organization or organizations that have been attacking them and go for them in the same way that we went for al-Qaida," he said.



http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040927/ap_on_re_eu/un_terrorism