Russian Official Insists Terrorists Are in Georgia

Russian Defense Minister Sergei B. Ivanov said Wednesday that his country will not ignore international terrorists who have infiltrated neighboring Georgia.

He said they are linked to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network and are “full of new plans for terrorist operations.”

Speaking at a news conference with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Ivanov said these terrorists had trained in Afghanistan, “committed terrible crimes” in the Russian breakaway republic of Chechnya, and are now in Georgia’s remote Pankisi Gorge, about a dozen miles from Russia’s border.

Ivanov said that Moscow had provided the U.S. a list that names hundreds such people with links to Al Qaeda.

At Georgia’s invitation, the Pentagon is preparing to send perhaps 150 troops to the former Soviet republic to train its armed forces in counter-terrorist operations.

Ivanov said he and Rumsfeld, in two days of talks at the Pentagon, discussed U.S.-Russian cooperation in the global war on terrorism, efforts to limit the spread of nuclear weapons technology and preparations for President Bush’s meeting in May with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin in Moscow.

Rumsfeld said the United States and Russia would probably work out a legally binding document outlining their mutual pledge to reduce the number of long-range nuclear weapons by two-thirds.