Istanbul, 18 November 1999 (RFE/RL) - UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe today opened an OSCE summit in Istanbul by criticizing Russia's military actions in Chechnya. Annan did not mention Chechnya by name, but said terrorists must not be fought with "indiscriminate violence and terror on innocent civilians."
Russian President Boris Yeltsin rejected the criticism, saying "so-called objective critics" do not have the right to criticize Russia over its attempts to "stop the spread of this cancer" of terrorism.
