Chechen power agents not reinforce posts near Ingush border

A source from law enforcement bodies of the Chechen Republic said that they would not strengthen their checkpoint near the administrative border with Ingushetia and regard the actions of their Ingush counterparts who had announced construction of the block-post near the village of Arshty as provocative.

On April 18, there was a confrontation between power agents of Chechnya and Ingushetia in Arshty. According to the Security Council of Ingushetia, Chechen power agents entered Arshty to organize a rally on a dispute over the borders of the republics. According to the Chechen party, they came to search for the leader of the Caucasian armed underground Dokku Umarov in the village.

In the outskirts of Arshty, power agents in Ingushetia began building a checkpoint.

"We've received no guidelines or directives concerning strengthening out posts in the vicinity of the administrative border with the neighbouring Ingushetia we have not received," a senior power agent of Chechnya told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

He treated the actions of the Ingush party as a "provocation". "The construction of a checkpoint near the village of Arshty, and with increased armour reinforcement, is a blatant provocation," he said and added that Arshty is a Chechen village, inhabited by representatives of the Chechen clan of myalhiy: "Arshty has a population of about 2000 villagers; and 90 percent of them are ethnic Chechens-myalhiys. The fact that the village is historically a Chechen village is known both to Chechens and Ingushes. Deploying a checkpoint there, and even with armoured equipment is absurd."