Apologies for meeting Kadyrov highlight acuteness of Chechen-Ingush territorial dispute

Kadyrov's supporters have voiced out new threats against residents of Ingushetia after the former Ingush official repented to his fellow countrymen for his warm communication with the head of Chechnya. Ramzan Kadyrov has become non-hands-shaking for entire Ingush teips (family clams) since he initiated a revision of the border between the republics, analysts assert.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Yakhya Khadzkhiev, a resident of Ingushetia, who attended the celebration on the occasion of the marriage of a son of a descendant of Kunta-haji Kishiev, has apologized for having greeted and hugged Kadyrov at the wedding. After that, Kadyrov threatened that if the allegations that Chechen authorities had illegally taken Ingush territories did not stop, then the "remaining villages" would also pass over to Chechnya.

"I did wrong ... Forgive me for the sake of the Almighty," Khadzkhiev said, explaining that critics of his actions wanted to break family ties with him.

Magomed Daudov, the Speaker of the Chechen Parliament, and Adam Delimkhanov, a Russian State Duma MP, condemned the former Ingush official and mentioned the dispute over the Chechen-Ingush border.

According to Daudov, "not a single Muslim behaved like Khadzkhiev." He called "to stop these provocations between the Chechens and the Ingushes."

The linking of signs of personal respect and courtesy with political issues is "a medieval savagery," Alexei Malashenko, a chief researcher at the E. M. Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), has stated.

"Hugging someone should not become a political factor, nor should an apology because of it," Mr Malashenko has added.

The apologies of the former Ingush official and Kadyrov's reaction thereto have to do with the border conflict and the aggravation of Chechen-Ingush relations, Akhmet Yarlykapov, a senior researcher at the Centre for Eurasian Studies at the MGIMO (Moscow Sate Institute of Foreign Relations), is sure.