The theme of territorial relations has always been the most difficult and painful one in the North Caucasus. But Moscow remembers about it only when a radical form of it appears – ethnic-political conflicts in the region. “There is a threat of these conflicts shifting to an ethnic-political level. We regularly hear calls to separate Dagestan from mountainous regions, establish territorial entities for the valley populations, and so on,” a senior scientist of the Center for Ethnic-Political Research of the Ethnology and Anthropology Institute of the RAS, Ahmet Yarlykapov, says. “Native residents of the valleys often appeal to the fact that their lands were stolen. But they don’t want to exile those who have lived there since Soviet times.”
Ramzan Kadyrov also said that he had no intention of destroying good-neighborly relations, commenting on his initiative to define the Chechen-Ingush administrative border. The head of Chechnya fears that his harsh statements toward the Ingush authorities might cool relations between the peoples of Chechnya and Ingushetia. “It cannot be. I have never divided the Chechen and Ingush people on my own or alienated them. My attitude to the problem of terrorism is defined by such an approach to this issue.”
At a session in Grozny on August 26, Kadyrov accused the fraternal people of seizing Chechen land in some border regions of the republic. The head of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, reacted to the accusations with military moderation, saying it is good that Grozny also wants to solve the problem through negotiations and within the work of the specially-established bilateral republican commission on demarcation of the administrative border with Ingushetia. It is planned that the speaker of the Chechen parliament will head it, as he is respected in both republics.
Thus, there are attempts to shift the process to the level of negotiations, as stirring up the conflict might set alight the whole North Caucasus, with its numerous territorial disputes. Along with the long-history aspect there are several relatively new reasons for the appearance of the territorial disputes. Among them are the lack of market turnover of agricultural lands connected with the forbidding of privatization; confusing legal principles in the land sphere, leading to alternative legal systems in the sphere of land tenure. Also the problem of Stalin's deportations plays a negative role. And this concerns not only Chechnya and Ingushetia, but also North Ossetia.
