By Nikolai Gorshkov BBC correspondent in Moscow

The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has promised to suspend the resettlement of Chechen refugees from tent camps in Ingushetia back to Chechnya.

Mr Putin was speaking at a meeting in the Kremlin with members of the Presidential Commission on Human Rights.

About 20,000 refugees live in squalid conditions

He said resettlement should stop until a specially set up body looks into the problem and comes up with solutions on how to ensure the rights of the refugees.

The camps were to be closed by the end of the year, but human rights groups accused the authorities of coercing the refugees to leave the camps against their will.

Blemish

The tent camps in Ingushetia have long been an embarrassment for Moscow.

About 20,000 people have been living there in squalid conditions for the fourth winter now.

To get rid of this blemish and prove to the world that the situation in Chechnya is returning to normal, the authorities decided to close down all camps by the end of this year.

They stopped repairing the worn-out tents and warned the inhabitants they would cut off gas and electricity supplies.

Human rights groups and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees appealed to the Russian Government to uphold the principle of voluntary resettlement.

Many refugees are still afraid to return to Chechnya.

They said that deployment of troops around the camps after the hostage siege in Moscow, the warnings about the imminent closure of the camps, and persistent advice from local authorities and even clergy to go back to Chechnya amounted to coercion.

Despite these pleas, a camp was reportedly closed at the beginning of December.

But now, according to President Putin, this has to stop.

He said the Russian constitution guaranteed human rights to every citizen of Russia but castigated the bureaucracy for failing to uphold these constitutional guarantees.

During this year alone, said President Putin, his office received 650,000 complaints about abuse of power and human rights violations by the vast Russian bureaucracy.