Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov slammed the West for adopting
double standards on terrorism in the wake of recent hostage-taking tragedy in
the south of the country, Vremya Novostei daily reported Thursday.
Lavrov told the newspaper that the West had yet to shake off its adversarial
mindset since the end of the Cold War, and their security services were not
fully cooperating with Russia in the fight against terror.
Russia is angry that Britain and the United States have given asylum to
spokesmen for Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov who Russia suspects of being
behind the school siege with another rebel chief Shamil Basayev.
"I would use a neutral term: It's a double standard," Lavrov said.
On Sept. 1, more than 30 armed militants took about 1,200 hostages in a
secondary school of the Beslan town in Russia's North Ossetia republic. The
crisis ended on the third day after fierce exchanges of gunfire between Russian
troops and the militants, but leaving at least 335 dead, half of them children.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered an internal investigation into
the tragedy, which authorities blamed on Chechen separatists.
Russia's Federal Security Services on Wednesday offered a reward of up to 300
million rubles (over 10 million US dollars) for information that will help it
hunt down Basayev and Maskhadov.