Armenians and Azerbaijanis apologize to Tver residents for brawl on Easter Day

On April 26, Seiran Kochkanyan, Chairman of the Tver Regional Branch of the "Union of Russian Armenians", and Fayaz Pashaev, Chairman of National-Cultural Autonomy of Azerbaijanis "AzKa-Tver", signed a joint appeal to residents of the city, in which they apologized for the behaviour of the participants in the fight that burst out on April 24 in the Zavolzhskiy District of Tver between Armenians and Azerbaijanis.

"On our part we assure you that the conflict was exclusively interpersonal by its nature. We hereby state at the level of leaders of the Armenian and Azerbaijani Diasporas that there are no inter-confessional conflicts between the two nations. The situation is under control," the leaders of the Diasporas have assured.

Let us remind you that in the evening fight on April 24 over 20 persons from each side took part. As a result, seven persons addressed city hospitals with various injuries; some of them were hospitalized. There was a version that the fight was provoked by the actions of Azerbaijanis, who drove along the streets of Tver with a Turkish flag. April 24 was the Commemoration Day of the victims of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey; and the actions of Azerbaijanis were perceived by the Armenian Diaspora as a provocation.

Fayaz Pashaev told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that since that day, when this conflict happened, he and Seiran Kochkaryan lost their rest. "We receive constant calls from media people and various public organizations. During these days we held several joint meetings with the youth. We're very concerned about what had happened. All of the perpetrators of the conflict will be punished, no matter to which Diaspora they belong," said the chairman of the National-Cultural Autonomy of Azerbaijanis.

"We must do everything not to let it happen again. We live in Russia and must respect Russian laws and customs," Seiran Kochkaryan, leader of the Tver Regional Branch of the "Union of Russian Armenians", said at the ceremony of announcement of the appeal to Tver residents.

According to the spokesman of the Tver UVD (Interior Department), the incident on April 24 is under personal supervision of the Acting Head of the UVD of Alexander Arseniev. The criminal case was initiated under Article 213, part 2 (act of hooliganism committed by a group of persons under prior agreement), and Article 111, part 2 (intentional infliction of grave bodily harm on grounds of ethnic or religious hatred), of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

The UVD has noted that to prevent escalation of the conflict they immediately reinforced outer patrol units and set up a 30-person strong OMON (riot police) reserve unit.

Despite the fact that the leaders of the Armenian and Azerbaijani Diasporas argue that the conflict in Tver on April 24 was interpersonal in nature and not an interethnic one, Professor German Ananyants, vice-president of the society "Union of Russian Armenians", sticks to the latter definition. In his opinion, this conflict was a provocation, carefully pre-planned by adults, while the young guys, who were driving their jeeps on April 24 with a Turkish flag, were just "bona fide performers."

"Go to Tver and try to buy a Turkish flag there. I doubt that you'll be able to do it. Thus, someone had deliberately brought this flag to Tver and exactly on April 24 drove across the city with it. Was it an occasional coincidence? No, I don't think so," German Ananyants told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.