DUSHANBE, May 24, 2016, Asia-Plus – Tajik President Emomali Rahmon today received Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, who arrived in Dushanbe for participation in a joint board meeting of the interior ministries of the two countries.
According to the Tajik president’s official website, Rahmon and Kolokoltsev discussed issues related to state and prospects of further expansion of cooperation between the law enforcement authorities of Tajikistan and the Russian Federation.
The two sides noted that Tajikistan and Russia were actively cooperating in combating organized crime, terrorism, extremism, and drug trafficking.
Rahmon and Kolokoltsev reportedly also discussed problems of legal and social protection of Tajik labor migrants in Russia.
In this connection, Emomali Rahmon expressed concern about recent incident at the Khovanskoye cemetery in Moscow, which left three Tajik nationals dead and more than two dozen others wounded.
Meanwhile, Russian interior minister noted during a press conference on May 23 in Dushanbe following the joint board meeting of the interior ministries of the two countries that there ought not to politicize the recent mass brawl at Moscow’s Khovanskoye cemetery.
“The incident that took place at the Khovanskoye cemetery has confirmed once again that we can oppose our fruitful cooperation to intentions to introduce interethnic motives into an ordinary criminal situation,” Kolokoltsev said.
We will recall that three Tajik nationals were killed and two dozen others were wounded in the mass brawl that took place at Moscow”s Khovanskoye cemetery on May 14.
The
RIA
news agency quoted a cemetery official as saying people from Russia”s North Caucasus regions of Chechnya and Dagestan had attacked migrants from ex-Soviet Uzbekistan and Tajikistan working there, attempting to take over their jobs.
Quoting a police source,
TASS
news agency said ethnic Chechens, Dagestanis, Uzbeks and Tajiks were among those detained.
The police reportedly recovered from the scene an assault rifle Kalashnikov, 51 empty cartridge cases of different caliber, knuckles, knives, axes, sticks and metal pieces.
Tajikistan”s Interior Ministry has sent to Moscow its top expert in battling organized crime to help investigate the incident.
Russian police have launched a criminal inquiry into the incident on charges of two or more murders by an organized group, illicit trafficking of firearms, and premeditated hooliganism, (Articles 105, 222 and 213 of the Russian Criminal Code, respectively).
