Dukvakha Abdurakhmanov and Makhmud Sakalov, chairmen of the lower chambers of the Chechen and Ingush parliaments respectively, issued a joint appeal on September 15 in the wake of the shoot-out two days earlier on the border between those two federation subjects between Chechen Interior Ministry special forces (OMON) and Ingush traffic police in which eight men died, ingushetiya.ru reported. The two men cautioned against construing the incident as an interethnic clash, and they stressed the need for law-enforcement agencies in the two republics to coordinate their activities more closely when conducting cross-border operations. Issa Kostoev, who worked for three decades in the Interior Ministry prior to his election as Ingushetia\'s representative to the Federation Council, similarly argued in a September 15 interview with regnum.ru that the law-enforcement agencies of the various North Caucasus republics should draft clear ground rules for conducting and coordinating such cross-border operations. He described the September 13 shoot-out as the direct consequence of \"an appallingly laid-back approach\" on the part of the leaders of the ministries involved. (RFE/RL)