Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday reiterated his refusal to negotiate with Chechen separatists. Speaking two weeks after armed militants seized more than 1,200 children and adults at a school in southern Russia, Putin rejected calls that the Kremlin should negotiate with renegade Chechen leaders, such as Aslan Maskhadov, in order to bring peace to the war-ravaged region. "We believe that there should be not only the same definition of terrorism for everybody but we should also mean the same thing when we talk about it," said Putin, speaking at a meeting of presidents from former Soviet republics held in Kazakhstan. "The atrocities that we faced in Beslan give us the right to say that those events were organized by members of the 'terrorist internationale," he said.
