The United Nations top human rights body Wednesday rebuffed a bid by the European Union to censure Russia for alleged violations in Chechnya. Russia, which had said the resolution \"sent the wrong signal\" about the situation in the separatist Caucasus region, comfortably won a vote on the EU motion in the 53-state United Nations Commission on Human Rights. The EU had urged the annual meeting to express \"deep concern at the reported ongoing violations ... including forced disappearances, extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, torture, ill-treatment ... as well as alleged violations of international humanitarian law\" by Russian forces in Chechnya. But the resolution, which was backed by the United States, was rejected 15-21 with 17 countries abstaining. A similar motion in 2002 failed by a single vote. \"The decision to submit such a resolution is regrettable,\" Russia\'s envoy Leonid Skotnikov told the commission. It \"directly stands in the way of a political settlement (in Chechnya) by sending, to put it mildly, the wrong signal to a small number of its opponents,\" he said. For Russia, separatist guerrillas, who have been waging a long and bloody campaign against Moscow\'s rule, are part of an international \"terrorist\" network that includes the al Qaeda organization said to be behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. Moscow says a Chechen referendum last month on a new constitution provides a political solution. The United States said it voted in favor of the EU motion because of \"our deep concern over continuing violations of human rights by Russian armed forces and security services in Chechnya.\" But it also attacked the \"terrorist\" acts of Chechen guerrillas, including the seizing of a Moscow theater late last year in which over 100 people died. (Reuters)