The pro-Russian Chechen administration will set up its offices in the capital Grozny by the end of the year, the head of the administration Akhmad Kadyrov said Friday.
"We are going to move to Grozny, perhaps in time for New Year," Kadyrov told RIA-Novosti agency. His headquarters, for now, are in Gudermes, east of Grozny.
Setting up the administration in the capital is "an important political question," he added explaining that people would not see the administration as permanent if it stayed outside the capital.
People will think "we are going to run away tomorrow, as was the case (after the Russians withdrew at the end of the first Chechen war) in 1996. It will not be like that," he said.
The transfer to Grozny has been postponed on several occasions, most recently on November 1, due to lack of funds to rebuild offices in the capital that have been almost totally destroyed by the Russian bombing campaign, Kadyrov said.
Most representatives of the Russian federation have already set up their offices in the capital, he admitted.
The Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Ruchaylo suggested recently that the transfer had been delayed for security reasons. Some 500 separatist Chechen rebels are still in the capital according to the Russian military.
Kadyrov, whose main support base is at Gudermes, has had a series of run-ins with top pro-Moscow officials in Chechnya, particularly the recently appointed mayor, Bislan Gantamirov.
Relations between the two men turned dangerously sour in July when some 200 armed men loyal to Gantamirov surrounded Kadyrov's offices in Gudermes to protest orders dismissing several local officials close to Gantamirov.
Kadyrov, seen by Chechen rebels as a traitor, has been attacked several times since he was nominated to head the pro-Moscow administration in June.
Russian soldiers opened fire on his car on Tuesday for reasons that remain unclear -- MOSCOW (AFP)
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