MOSCOW, March 21 (RIA Novosti) - Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov said Wednesday he is against signing of an agreement on the separation of powers between the central government and his North Caucasus republic.
The deal, which was supposed to confer broad autonomy on the republic, dates back to Akhmad Kadyrov, Ramzan's father and former president, who was assassinated in a terrorist bomb attack in 2004.
"The agreement is not necessary," Kadyrov said. "We propose to forget about this agreement. I am against its signing."
Last month, the Russian parliament's upper house rejected a similar agreement between the central government and the Volga area republic of Tatarstan.
The agreement stipulated that the federal government and Tatarstan's Cabinet negotiate a deal allowing Tatar authorities to have a greater say in decisions involving economic, environmental, cultural and other regional issues.
The document also guaranteed that a leader of Tatarstan, whose candidacy is proposed by the Russian president, must speak the Tatar language in addition to Russian. The republic would also have the right to issue internal identification papers, with an insert in Tatar.
Ramzan Kadyrov, elected Chechen president earlier this year, has become the first Chechen leader to brush aside the agreement. Loyal to Moscow, the president's move is deemed a concession in exchange for programs that have been conducted to subsidize the republic's reconstruction following two wars, which broke out in the 1990s as the republic sought independence.
Although the active phase of the North Caucasus antiterrorist campaign officially ended in 2001, periodic bombings and clashes between gunmen and federal troops still disrupt Chechnya and nearby regions, including Daghestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, and Karachayevo-Circassia.
And Kadyrov pledged Monday that all illegal armed groups in Chechnya would be eliminated within a two-month period.
Earlier Monday Colonel General Arkady Yedelev, a Russian deputy interior minister, said that currently 37 illegal armed groups, consisting of about 450 militants, were still active in Chechnya.
