7 July 2004
DAILY REVIEW FROM TATARSTAN
Turkish Companies To Restore Kremlin Library, Build New Consulate
The Turkish Foreign Ministry plans to hold a tender for Turkish companies operating in Tatarstan for the roughly $2 million construction of a Turkish Consulate in Kazan, Turkish Consul-General to Kazan Ismail Haqqi Musa told a news conference in Kazan on 6 July, Tatar media reported. The project is slated for completion by mid-2005. Turkish companies Odak, Monotek, Orimek, and Renaissance are constructing or reconstructing buildings ahead of the Kazan millennium. Musa also said 11 companies will take part in the restoration of the Kazan Kremlin library. That project's total cost is $1.8 million, $1.5 million of which is being covered by Turkish firms as a present for the Kazan jubilee.
Bilateral trade turnover between Turkey and Tatarstan totaled $1 billion last year. A Days of Turkey in Tatarstan event will be held in 2005, Musa said.
Communist Leader Loses Suit Contesting Tatar Parliamentary Elections Results
The Kazan Moscow Raion Court rejected a lawsuit on 6 July filed by Communist Party Republican Committee First Secretary Aleksandr Salii, who demanded that the results of the 14 March State Council elections in several electoral districts be annulled, "Kommersant-Povolzhe" reported on 7 July. Salii claimed that falsification of ballot results in several districts included counting votes given to other parties as votes for Unified Russia or Russia's Regions. He also believes the substitution of real protocols with false ones was effected as they were being transferred from district election commissions to territorial commissions -- adding that observers say it took an inordinate amount of time to make such handovers. Salii demanded that election ballots be re-counted in those districts, but the court rejected his request. Salii said he will appeal the Moscow Raion Court verdict with the Tatar Supreme Court.
Federal Inspector Succumbs To Injuries Of Car Accident
A federal inspector to Tatarstan, Denis Ekhmedullin, 31, died on 6 July in the Nizhnii Novgorod Traumatic Surgery and Orthopedics Institute, where he was undergoing treatment for burns and other injuries he suffered in a car accident near Kazan in June, intertat.ru and other Tatar and Russian news agencies reported on 6 July. Ekhmedullin's vehicle strayed into oncoming traffic on 7 June.
Compiled by Gulnara Khasanova
DAILY REVIEW FROM BASHKORTOSTAN
Bashkir Police To Help Investigate Ingushetian Terrorist Raid
Seven Bashkir police officers will join the investigation into the 22 June terrorist raid in Ingushetia that claimed the lives of more than 90 people, the Vsya Ufa television company reported on 6 July, citing the Bashkir Interior Ministry's Ufa Board. Criminal investigation specialists will be working in the North Caucasus for two months. Reportedly over 1,000 terrorists were involved in the raids.
Official Calls For Russia's Rapprochement With Islamic Conference
Drawing closer to the Islamic world is in Russia's interests as a Eurasian country, Russia's special ambassador Veniamin Popov said on 5 July, ITAR-TASS reported. Popov said the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) member countries also laud cooperation with Russia and consider it a reliable political partner. He also added that Russia is prepared to hold with the Islamic world a "constructive dialogue that is of special importance at the moment when some forces equalize Islam to terrorism." "Cooperation with the community uniting 57 countries is developing in different directions.... The issue is on the agenda for Russia to obtain observer status in the Organization of the Islamic Conference," Popov said.
Compiled by Gulnara Khasanova