Political analysts link Azerbaijanis’ detention with conflict in Derbent

The mass arrest of Azerbaijanis in Derbent has no political pretext and has to do with the local conflict around the programme "Dilapidated Housing", Zardusht Alizade and Mekhman Aliev, the Azerbaijani political analysts, believe.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that 205 Azerbaijani citizens were detained after the raid of the Russian Federal Migration Service (FMS) in Derbent.

"Following the general global trend of tougher fight against illegal migrants, Russia has also recently tightened control in this sphere. I don’t think that it is some specific action against Azerbaijanis," Zardusht Alizade told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

He does not think that the detention of Azerbaijani citizens is somehow linked with the extradition of the blogger Alexander Lapshin to Baku. "If Russia really wanted to put pressure on Azerbaijan, it had many other political and economic instruments at its disposal," said Alizade.

In his turn, Mekhman Aliev, the Director of the independent news agency “Turan”, believes that the mass detention of Azerbaijanis in Derbent "may be associated with some ‘in-house settlements’ in Dagestan." "It is reported that these people were employed in the construction of houses under the federal programme ‘Dilapidated Housing’. Apparently, it’s a huge project supported by large funds. Perhaps, there are some ‘abused’ parties; or power agents failed to get their share. That is why they conducted a raid to reveal illegal migrants," Aliev told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.