Ingush Leader Yunus-Bek Yevkurov says that one of the main goals of the government is to have Ingushetia open all residential areas for Ingush citizens to enter, RIA Novosti reports.
About 100 Ingush families returned to North Ossetia in 2012, according to Yevkurov. He emphasized that conflict situations occurring there had no ethnic nature.
Vladikavkaz says that all Russian regions are equal and citizens may choose any for residence. North Ossetian officials noted that there were no residential areas restricting Ingushetians or any other ethnicities.
Moreover, North Ossetia emphasized that the Ingush parliament had determined the administrative borders in 2008, according to the federal law on local autonomies (N131-FZ).
The Prigorodny District of North Ossetia had suffered from an armed conflict in 1992. The Ingush population had been removed from the areas during the Great Patriotic War. They want the lands to be returned.
32,700 Ingush people lived in North Ossetia in 1989. Census in 2002 said that their population dropped to 21,400. The census in 2010 states that their population increased again, reaching 28,300.
