Madame Chair, we feel compelled to express our continued disappointment at the failure of the Russian Federation fully to implement the commitments all of our leaders made in Istanbul with respect to Chechnya.

As Secretary Albright recently observed in Moscow, the OSCE has an explicit role in resolving conflicts within societies.

Moreover, the Istanbul Declaration specifically called for a political solution and the renewal of a political dialogue in the North Caucasus.

As Secretary Albright said in her February 2 address at the Diplomatic Academy in Moscow, "No one questions Russia's responsibility and even obligation to combat insurgency and terror within its borders. But the world increasingly has questioned doing so at such a high cost in innocent human lives and suffering, and such a high cost to Russia's international standing.

These tactics will not set the stage for building a peaceful, prosperous Chechnya within the Russian Federation. Only a peaceful political resolution of the conflict will do that. As long as the fighting continues, it will serve as a magnet for extremism that could one day risk the stability of the entire region.

A commitment to political solutions empowers the peacemakers. Military operations encourage the extremists."

Finally, we would remind the Russian Federation of its OSCE commitments with respect to the freedom of information.

As Secretary Albright noted earlier this week in Moscow, journalists ought to be allowed to cover what is going on in the North Caucasus.

We share the concern expressed by the OSCE's Representative on Freedom of the Media about the detention of Radio Liberty journalist Andrei Babitsky . We were pleased to see reports that this veteran journalist has been released in Moscow, and would welcome reports that charges against him have been dropped.

Over the course of the last weeks, there has been a very focused interest on whether or not one describes the events in Chechnya as a "conflict." To us, that makes no difference and one could use any word to describe what is going on there. We have a legitimate interest there. We have a commitment from Istanbul to follow-up upon. That is what I think we should be focusing upon—not the letters in the alphabet we use to describe what is happening.