WASHINGTON, Sept 2 (AFP) - US Secretary of State Colin Powell called his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Thursday to renew a US offer of assistance in a hostage crisis at a school in North Ossetia, which bears the hallmarks of an attack by Chechen rebels.
"The secretary spoke this morning with Foreign Minister Lavrov and conveyed our concern about the situation (and) reiterated the offers we've made that we'll help out if there's something we can do to help," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
Powell also expressed to Lavrov "our concern for the welfare of these children and the people in the school and our absolute condemnation of terrorism and our desire to support the Russians in their fight against terrorism," Boucher told reporters.
He said he was unaware of any Russian response to the US offer of help, which was first conveyed on Wednesday by President George W. Bush to Russian President Vladimir Putin in a telephone call soon after heavily armed militants took over the school in the town of Beslan.
Earlier Thursday, the hostage-takers, who have threatened to blow up the school if unspecified demands are not met, freed 26 women and children but kept hundreds, including young pupils, captive in the school.
Russian officials said contact with the militants "intensified" during the day on a number of issues, among them an agreement to allow food and water to be delivered to the hostages, believed to number around 330 after the releases.
Officials have not yet apportioned responsibility for the hostage-taking but the situation drew comparisons to previous hostage seizures in the Caucasus and Moscow carried out by rebels from the breakaway republic of Chechnya.
The most spectacular of those was the capture of some 800 people at a Moscow theater in October 2002. That standoff ended three days after it began and resulted in the deaths of more than 40 militants and 129 hostages.
The United States has been critical of Moscow's policy toward Chechnya and urged dialogue between all sides for a political resolution to the bloody conflict there.
Boucher said that position had not changed and maintained there was no excuse to resort to terrorism and hostage-taking to achieve a political end.
"This is an issue of international terrorism," he said of the harrowing school standoff. "The Russians are quite aware of our overall position on Chechnya ... but anybody who disagrees with Russian policy should also pursue a political settlement.
"There is no excuse and no justification for this kind of hostage-taking, for this kind of terror exercised against schoolchildren and the others who are being held," Boucher said.