NORTH OSSETIAN-INGUSH AGREEMENTS FAIL TO ADDRESS CENTRAL ISSUE.

Publication: Monitor Volume: 1 Issue: 50

Meeting in North Ossetia´s capital Vladikavkaz July 11, thepresidents of North Ossetia and Ingushetia, Akhsarbek Galazovand Ruslan Aushev, signed a document on measures toward settlingthe conflict between their republics, Russian agencies report.The two agreed to adhere to Russia´s constitution, to implementBoris Yeltsin´s 1993 decree on starting repatriation of Ingushrefugees to four villages in North Ossetia, and to work out aprocedure for the refugees´ return and a program to improvethe political climate in both republics. They also agreed to askthe Russian government to finance and to subcontract the fourvillages’ reconstruction, to coordinate the two interior ministries’work, to set up separate drafting commissions for an economicand cultural cooperation treaty to be signed in 1996, and to meetagain at some unspecified date. But these agreements fail to addressthe main issues in dispute: the status of Prigorodny rayon andthe 1992 ethnic cleansing of its Ingush population by the NorthOssetian militia with Russian army and MVD support.

Russian Oil for Cuban Sugar.