International > Russia's Putin seeks to assure angry Beslan mothers

The delicate three-hour meeting between Putin and members of the outspoken Beslan Mothers' Committee took place a year and a day after the onset of the three-day crisis in which armed pro-Chechen rebels stormed into the school in southern Russia.

A total of 331 people -- half of them children -- were killed, most of them on the final day when the school's sports hall where the hostages were held collapsed in an explosion, fire and shooting.

Putin, looking somber at the Kremlin meeting, said terrorist acts throughout the world showed that no state could offer complete protection to its citizens against such attacks.

"But I want to particularly underline this, I agree with those who believe that this cannot justify anyone failing to carry out their official duties as they are expected to," he said in televised remarks.

"That is the truth. And all the circumstances of this affair should be thoroughly investigated," he added.

The head of the mothers' group, who had promised to ask Putin why no official had been punished for bungling that made the bloodshed worse, said the conversation was tough.

The group says the death toll could have been much lower had it not been for a litany of official failings, including what it says was a lack of a clear chain of command at the scene.

"We all told (Putin) that ... as the Russian president, as the head of state he must take responsibility," Susanna Dudiyeva told reporters after returning from Moscow to Beslan. "He said he knew this.

"He answered he would do all he could so that truth came out and so that everyone knew it and so that the guilty would be punished," she added.

Dudiyeva, whose 12-year-old son died in the siege, said Beslan mothers were ready to give Putin the last chance.

"We believed him," she said. "If our trust, and through us the trust of our people is betrayed, then next time (trusting Putin) would be impossible."

UNUSUAL MEETING

Putin's meeting with Beslan mothers was unusual because the Russian leader steers clear of potentially embarrassing public encounters.

But the Beslan drama has become instrumental in the Kremlin campaign to unite Russians to confront the terrorist threat. September 3, the date of the bloody climax to the Beslan drama, is marked in Russia as a day of solidarity in fighting terrorism.

Putin's popularity has been underpinned by tough action in rebel Chechnya, which was recaptured by Russian troops in 1999 after three years of effective independence.

However, despite formally taking Chechnya under control, Russia has so far failed to stop rebel attacks inside the restive province and prevent violence from spilling into neighboring regions.

A reminder of the continuing instability came on Friday when up to three Russian servicemen were killed and several others wounded in an explosion in Dagestan, a Russian Muslim territory neighboring Chechnya.

(Additional reporting by Oliver Bullough in Beslan)

2005-09-03