In a statement dated 18 March and circulated by chechenpress.com, Aslan Maskhadov, who was elected Chechen president in January 1997 in a ballot recognized by both Russia and the international community, expressed his gratitude to the European Parliament for its adoption on 26 February of a declaration formally condemning as an act of genocide the 1944 deportation on orders from Soviet leader Josef Stalin of the entire Chechen people to Central Asia. Maskhadov expressed the hope that the European Parliament will follow up by adopting a similar statement condemning the ongoing war in Chechnya as genocide. He warned that the indifference of much of the international community to Russia\'s systematic annihilation of the Chechens is impelling thousands of young men to join the ranks of the Chechen resistance, and that some of those volunteers \"believe they have the moral right to use against the enemy the methods he uses [against us, but] which we condemn.\" (RFE/RL)