President Vladimir Putin has called on Muslim clerics in Russia to get involved in educating the country's Muslims in order to prevent extremism and politicizing of Islam.
Addressing Muslim leaders at a session of the presidential Council on Interethnic Relations in Ufa, the capital of Russia's mostly Muslim Republic of Bashkortostan, on October 22, Putin also urged them to help Muslim immigrants adapt to life in Russia to reduce the likelihood of violence.
Putin was taking part in marking the 225th anniversary of the founding of Russia's Central Spiritual Council of Muslims.
The gathering in Ufa is being held amid renewed ethnic tensions across Russia triggered by the killing earlier this month of a young Muscovite, allegedly by a migrant worker from Azerbaijan.
That incident was followed by violent antimigrant rioting in Moscow.
Authorities said after an apparent suicide bombing killed at least six people on a passenger bus in Volgograd on October 21 that a young woman from Daghestan who had converted to Islam and was married to a North Caucasus insurgent leader had carried out that attack.
Addressing Muslim leaders at a session of the presidential Council on Interethnic Relations in Ufa, the capital of Russia's mostly Muslim Republic of Bashkortostan, on October 22, Putin also urged them to help Muslim immigrants adapt to life in Russia to reduce the likelihood of violence.
Putin was taking part in marking the 225th anniversary of the founding of Russia's Central Spiritual Council of Muslims.
The gathering in Ufa is being held amid renewed ethnic tensions across Russia triggered by the killing earlier this month of a young Muscovite, allegedly by a migrant worker from Azerbaijan.
That incident was followed by violent antimigrant rioting in Moscow.
Authorities said after an apparent suicide bombing killed at least six people on a passenger bus in Volgograd on October 21 that a young woman from Daghestan who had converted to Islam and was married to a North Caucasus insurgent leader had carried out that attack.
