EU wants explanation from Moscow on hostage storming

eubusiness ^ | 03 September 2004

[dennisw]

EU wants explanation from Moscow on hostage storming

03 September 2004 = = The EU refused Friday to rush to judgment on how Russian authorities acted in the bloody end to the hostage crisis in north Ossetia, but said it wants Moscow's explanation of the tragedy.

"It is premature now, without knowing the exact situation, to make a judgment on the way the Russian authorities acted," said Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, whose country currently holds the European Unionpresidency.

"We first have to evaluate the situation with the knowledge of all the details," he told reporters at the end of the first day of a two-day meeting of EU foreign ministers in the southern Netherlands.

But in a later statement Friday evening Bot said the EU will be seeking an explanation from Moscow.

"All countries in the world need to work together to prevent tragedies like this. But we also would like to know from the Russian authorities how this tragedy could have happened."

The comments came after around 100 were killed and over 550 injured as crack troops stormed a school in southern Russia, freeing children and adults held hostage for almost three days by militants demanding independence for Chechnya.

Earlier in the day Bot called the denouement of the hostage crisis in the town of Beslan a "deep human tragedy" and said it appeared that authorities "considered very carefully this situation before deciding to take this action."

Speaking following afternoon talks, he added that "as figures are coming in it turns out that the drama is even greater than I thought."

He notably said that "perhaps at a later date" European leaders could discuss "with our Russian friends" the possibility of creating a joint anti-terrorism force.

"We should also eventually look into what has happened and discuss ... measures that can be taken to prevent such situations from occurring," he added.

[Savage Beast]

"When children began to faint, they laughed"

Thanks for the link (post #176) to that terribly disturbing and enlightening article, Truth.

Everyone show know what we are up against. When used repeatedly, a word tends to loose its impact; so it is with "terrorist".

People must not forget

what these people are,

what evil is,

that these are people so suffused with evil that they have become its quintessence,

and what it would be like if such people came to control nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction.

[ApesForEvolution]

LOL

Zell in a box...lol

[AdmSmith]

I guess that they want to know why the Ruskies did this:

"Lieutenant General Victor Sobolev, whose 58th Army participated in the storm said that it is unlikely that any of the militants escaped - "The majority of them have been destroyed," he said. The army shelled the terrorists in their hideout from tank guns"

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/09/03/terrorists2.shtml

The hideout included terrorists and hostages...

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks for the comments. I was offline until just now.

I agree with your comments regarding the difficult nature of these situations. What an insult to intelligence the EU overture was. If I were Putin I've give them a short two word response, the second word being "you".

[DoughtyOne]

Any group of people who are not content to live within their own borders and leave others in peace, should be the focus of peaceful people's wrath. That goes for Moselems, Hindu and even Christian people.

I am sick and tired of the toothless E.U. seeking to rule the world. They have brittle economies, the poorest excuse for leadership, a declining standard of living and yet they keep coming up with more hairbrained ideas to rule the rest of is.

I'm not saying they shouldn't be a part of the process, but the level to which they seek to Lord it over others is offensive.

Look at our history and look at European history. Which has shown it's society to be best prepared to correct world problems? The E.U.? That would be absurd.

I've got two words of advice for the E.U., "Shut up!" I'll add just six more. "Get your own house in order."

[OXENinFLA]

"All countries in the world need to work together to prevent tragedies like this. But we also would like to know from the Russian authorities how this tragedy could have happened."

One more reason to hate the EU!

[SandRat]

I'm sure that there are sufficient truly vulgar insults in Russian to explain that the Russians had certain anatomical items and the rest of the appeasement EU butt monkeys don't. That should be all the the EU gets.