As an American girl reporter brought the two painful issues together in her question, the diplomat said:
"As for the Chechen situation, we are regularly offering political settlement details at all levels, to the USA as any other. Russia is doing it with all due patience, and the efforts are bringing fruit." Not that the job is brilliant success, he acknowledged-suffice it to mention a resolution on Chechnya the European Union recently offered to the UN rights committee. The USA voted in its favour, but the resolution was buried.
Russia will go on explaining to the USA and other countries what is going on in Chechnya, added Mr. Yakovenko.
As for inmate abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison, he hopes the USA will be serious with investigation. America is a democracy, so he has every reason to hope it will cope with the problem, which involves its own laws trespassed.
Russia and other countries are looking forward to detection and court verdicts on prisoners' cruel treatment.
Moscow is perusing an UK-US draft UN Security Council resolution on Iraq, which has been offered Security Council members for consideration.
Lahdar Brahimi, the UN Secretary General's special envoy, is soon coming back from Iraq, and Russia looks forward to his report, and Security Council debates on his ideas of a future Iraqi government.
The government needs public confidence in its country, so it will be key part of the resolution, pointed out the diplomat.
As Russia pointed out more than once, the future government needs the entire nation's confidence. All Iraqi political forces, opposition included, must speak up on the matter.
As Moscow sees it, whatever initiatives on the new Security Council resolution and Iraqi government membership must have the utmost publicity for all Council members to take part in debates.
Russia is enthusiastic about interim understandings made in Sudan, Mr. Yakovenko went on. It insists on all disputes settled peacefully, and on Sudan retaining its territorial integrity in final settlement.
The latest understandings have come as a stride toward the Southern Sudan issue finally settled.
The three understandings the Sudanese government signed with the People's Liberation Army are opening the road to a peace treaty that will put an end to civil warfare. It flared up nineteen years ago as central authorities ordered the Shari'a court and other Muslim laws and legal establishments spread throughout the country, including its south, dominated by Christianity and animism. Close on two million perished in the war.
The Eurasian Economic Community, or EURASEC, was another prominent topic at the conference. The EURASEC Interparliamentary Assembly is holding session in Astana, Kazakhstan, May 27-29, to prepare the grounds for June 17 Community summitry.
The Kazakh capital is hosting an Assembly plenary session, and a bureau session. Speaker Boris Gryzlov of the State Duma, parliament's lower house, and a parliamentary delegation are expected to join Russian representatives in Astana.
The session will promote team efforts and integration in the post-Soviet area. Prominent on the agenda will be bringing national legal norms closer together in many fields, said the diplomat.
