MOSCOW, Sept 1 (AFP) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday blamed international "terrorist" groups for four terror attacks that have rocked Russia in the past week and claimed over 100 lives.
"International terrorism is at the root of these acts. There is enough evidence of this. It is known by our partners in the counter-terrorism coalition," Lavrov told reporters here after meeting with his Canadian counterpart Pierre Pettigrew.
"Countering terrorism remains one of the priority aspects of Russia's foreign policy," he said, vowing to punish the organisers of the attacks.
His remarks came after a suicide bombing killed nine people in Moscow and armed gunmen took over a hundred hostages in a school near Chechnya, and just a week after two passengers jets exploded, killing all 90 people on board in an attack blamed on Chechen separatist rebels.
Lavrov was quick to state that the situation in war-torn Chechnya was under control and called the attacks an attempt to destabilise the volatile republic.
"The terror acts ... show that the stabilisation process is not to the liking of those who seek to disrupt the peace and stabilisation process in the Chechen republic, they want to disrupt it," he said.