Mufti Ismail Berdiyev remains the Chairman of the North Caucasus Muslim Coordination Center (NCMCC), as decided by the center’s council in Moscow, RIA Novosti reports.
The chairman was supposed to leave office in May. After withdrawal of Chechen muftis from the Coordinating Council, experts were expecting dismissal of Berdiyev.
The Chechen Muslim Administration (CMA) said on April 16 that it is leaving the NCMCC, because the latter does not fulfill all functions. Chechen Leader Ramzan Kadyrov met Chairman of the CMA Sultan Mirzayev and said that the structure neglects combating extremism and Wakhabism, RIA Novosti reports.
Berdiyev said that Kadyrov was uninformed about the real state of affairs.
The NCMCC held a session attended by muftis of Dagestan, Ingushetia, Karachay-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia and Kalmykia. They passed amendments to the organization’s charter, prolonging chairmanship from 3 to 5 years.
The next session was set for Kislovodsk, where the main office of the NCMCC will be established, spokesman of the organization Shafig Pshikhachev said in Moscow.
Spokesman of the Muslims Administration of Kabardino-Balkaria Khazretali Jasezhev said that Dagestani Mufti Ahmad-Haji Abdulayev was one of the two candidates to replace Berdiyev.
Ruslan Kurbanov, senior scientists of the Institute for Oriental Studies of the RAS, approved Berdiyev’s re-election and called him a skilled specialist.
