DOHA, 20 April 2004 — Russia said on Sunday it would respect a Qatari court’s ruling in the case of two Russian agents accused of assassinating a former Chechen president in Doha.

“The Qatari courts will decide on the case of the two Russian defendants... The Russian side expressed respect for the Qatari justice system,” said a joint statement issued after Russia’s security council chief Igor Ivanov held talks with Qatari officials.

Ivanov told a joint news conference with Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabr Al-Thani he hoped the ruling will be “compatible with the spirit of friendship between the two countries.”

But he skirted questions about whether he had seen the Russian pair during his visit and about differences with Qatar over their alleged involvement in the Feb. 13 assassination of Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, saying the case was subjudice.

Moscow has been trying to secure the release of its two nationals accused by Qatari officials of being secret agents and behind the assassination of Yandarbiyev, who had been living in exile in Doha.

The trial of Anatoly Bilashkov and Vassily Pokchov, who are accused of 10 charges, including the murder of Yandarbiyev, opened in Doha on April 11.

They are also accused of attempting to kill Yandarbiyev’s 13-year-old son and of smuggling arms into Qatar, according to the formal accusations read out in court by a representative of the prosecutor general.

In what escalated into a diplomatic row between the Gulf state and Russia, Qatar expelled the first secretary of the Russian Embassy late last month after detaining him and the agents in connection with the murder of Yandarbiyev in a car bomb.

Qatar’s expulsion announcement was made just hours after the return to Doha of two Qatari nationals who were released by Moscow.

The two members of the Gulf state’s wrestling federation were arrested in transit at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport on Feb. 26 on suspicion of carrying undeclared foreign currency in what was seen as a tit-for-tat move.

Ivanov, a former foreign minister, is also due to visit Kuwait on a tour focusing on the situation in Iraq and the Middle East, the RIA-Novosti news agency said earlier Sunday, quoting the Kremlin press service.

Ivanov became head of the Russian Security Council in March.