61.   Members of the commission also raised the prospect that the fighting could spread into other restive Russian republics.

62.   Moscow poured troops and armor into the tiny, southern Russian republic last December to end its self-declared independence.

63.   Moscow has long accused Turkey of supporting the rebels in the breakaway Russian republic in the Caucasus region.

64.   Moscow maintains that Chechnya remains a Russian republic.

65.   On Thursday, Otunnu toured the Orthopedic Prosthesis Workshop in Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, a Russian republic bordering Chechnya.

66.   Russia maintains that Chechnya is still a Russian republic, while Chechnya has declared itself independent.

67.   Russia maintains that Chechnya remains a Russian republic.

68.   Russia still considers Chechnya to be a semi-autonomous Russian republic, but Chechnya considers itself independent and carries out virtually all functions of an independent state.

69.   Senior Russian and Chechen officials signed an agreement Friday that will permit the shipment of oil through a pipeline across the breakaway Russian republic.

70.   Sergei Kiriyenko, first deputy minister of fuel and energy, said the September agreement with the rebel Russian republic is only temporary.