Russian parliamentarians agree with PACE report on North Caucasus

The head of the Russian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and chairman of the Duma's committee on international relations, Konstantin Kosachev, pointed out the objectivity of the resolution on the human rights situation in Russia's North Caucasus, Interfax reports.
"There are still some deputies in the PACE who judge the situation by information from the media, but the situation here has significantly changed," Kasachev said.
In particular he pointed that "more than 300,000 Chechen citizens returned to the republic, and the conviction rate has increased by 40%". He has assured his PACE counterparts that human rights
observance has also developed in recent years.
During the debates on the reports, most of the PACE parliamentarians criticized the Chechen authorities. "There is no war in Chechnya but, due to the efforts of the government, society has moved backwards in its development". The high level of terrorist threat and corruption in the North Caucasus was also mentioned during the debates.