The Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov has sharply criticised a meeting in Washington yesterday on Thursday between State Department officials and a man who describes himself as the foreign minister of Chechnya, Ilyas Akhmadov.

Mr Ivanov accused the United States of giving de facto support to terrorists and separatists.

But a State Department spokesman James Foley said Mr Akhmadov was regarded as a private person with a role to play; the officials had told him that the United States supported the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service