WASHINGTON, Aug 30 (AFP) - The United States on Monday denounced weekend presidential polls in the strife-torn Russian republic of Chechnya, saying the election did not meet international standards for freedom and fairness.
At the same time, the State Department urged Sunday's victor, Kremlin-anointed career police officer Alu Alkhanov, to work with all Chechens, including separatist rebels engaged in a bloody war with Moscow, to promote a political settlement to the conflict.
"We know that there were serious flaws in the electoral process there, especially the earlier disqualification of a leading candidate on a mere technicality," spokesman Richard Boucher said.
"It is possible to say that yesterday's presidential vote did not meet international standards for a democratic election," he told reporters.
Alkhanov, who on Monday vowed to consign Chechnya's separatist extremists to the "dustbin of history," won a crushing victory in the vote, but observers have raised serious questions about the validity of the poll, noting that electoral officials reported dizzyingly high turnout figures when polling stations had often been deserted.
The United States has long been critical of Russian policy in Chechnya, harshly criticizing reports of human rights abuses and Moscow's refusal to deal with separatists on a political level.
But it has also condemned attacks by Chechen rebels as "terrorism," and Boucher renewed US calls for all sides to reconcile, appealing to Alkhanov to work for a peaceful resolution and reaffirming the US position that Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation.
"Mr. Alkhanov now faces the difficult task of broadening support among the people of Chechnya, of bringing pluralism into the political process and finding ways to achieve a comprehensive settlement of the conflict," he said.
"We call on him and others to adjust themselves to those fundamental tasks," Boucher said. "We also call for an end to human rights abuses in Chechnya by all parties and for those who committed such abuses to be held accountable."
Sunday's election came just a week after up to 50 people were killed in a rebel raid on the Chechen capital, and was marked by the death of a man who blew himself up outside a polling station.
It also followed the near simultaneous crash of two passenger airliners on flights to southern Russian destinations last week, which many have blamed on female Chechen suicide bombers, and the assassination in May of former pro-Moscow Chechen president Akhmad Kadyrov.